The Supreme Court on Thursday sent a man straight from the court to Tihar jail for a month for going back on his offer to buy a prime hotel of Sahara group in New York.
Prakash Swamy, 64, had approached the court a fortnight ago on behalf of MG Capital Holdings llC, a New York-based firm, to buy the New York Plaza hotel. However on Thursday, he appeared in the court in person to seek clemency claiming that he was neither a stakeholder nor a partner in the New York-based firm. Swamy claimed that purely on basis of his friendship with the directors of the firm, he had come to the apex court holding the power of attorney.
The SC had directed the company to deposit Rs750 crore, following which they backed out.
The Bench of Justices Dipak Misra, Ranjan Gogoi, and AK Sikri felt Swamy committed the contempt of court as he failed to deposit a fine of Rs 10 crore as ordered by the court on the earlier date. “When you filed affidavit, you should have given due diligence that this is not a small property that you are offering to buy. It has high stakes. Following your affidavit, we specially assembled to pass orders and spent our time.”
What compounded Swamy’s woes was the fact that officials of the foreign firm refused to pay the penalty to bail out Swamy, who was left to fend for himself, although he engaged senior advocate Mohan Parasaran for his defence.
Reduced to tears, Swamy pleaded mercy, but the SC wished to set an example for any such person who would take the court for a ride. “This was not a small case. You must have known the seriousness of your offer. Now you have learnt your lesson. If we forgive you, it will send a wrong signal,” the SC said.
The court directed the Delhi Police officials present in the courtroom to take Swamy into custody and directed the Registrar of Supreme Court to sign a warrant of his arrest following which he will be placed under simple imprisonment of one month at Tihar Jail.