The Sahara Group on Thursday told the Supreme Court it was “virtually impossible” to deposit Rs 10,000 crore so as to get its chief Subrata Roy freed from jail and raised the accusation of “bias” and “prejudice” against him. A failure by the Group to meet the bail condition would force Roy and two other directors to cool their heels in Delhi’s Tihar Jail for at least one more week since the court will now take up the matter Thursday next week. “The task you (court) have given to us is virtually impossible to achieve. Conditions should not be so onerous that they become unconstitutional, as has happened in this case . sending them to jail was a void order passed in flagrant violation of the Constitution. It is an order with reasonable apprehension of bias against Sahara and concerned persons,” said Sahara counsel. They said that the order of judicial custody was “terribly wrong” and violated civil liberties without giving affected persons even a chance to be heard. “Our custody today stands without being held guilty of any charges; without a notice; without a hearing. Our clients are in custody for 23 days now and are being punished without any charge having been established against them. There is a reasonable apprehension that this bench is prejudiced,” the counsel told a bench of Justices K S Radhakrishnan and J S Khehar. The counsel urged the judges on the bench to either acknowledge they had committed a mistake and recall their detention order of March 4, or send the matter to some other bench for adjudication. On Wednesday, the bench had asked the group to pay Rs 10,000 crore.
