Sahara proposes new plan to pay Sebi, release chief

Payment in instalments, R20,000 cr to be settled by March 31, 2015.

Under pressure to satisfy the court for ensuring release of its chief Subrata Roy, the Sahara Group on Tuesday came up with a new proposal to pay Sebi by March next year Rs 20,000 crore, that it has to return to the investors.

The group offered to pay Rs 20,000 crore to the market regulator in instalments. The first, Rs 2,500 crore, will be made within three days of the restriction on operation of bank accounts being lifted.

The next three instalments will be of Rs 3,500 crore with three-month rests, and the last will be of Rs 7,000 crore by March 31 next year. The new proposal is Rs 3,000 crore more than its earlier offer.

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The Sahara group said its proposal to deposit Rs 20,000 crore to the market regulator in five installments would be backed by an irrevocable bank guarantee. It is also prayed that if the firms have paid excess amounts, Sebi may be directed to refund it as well as the bank guarantees. As per Sahara, the amount raised by them in bonds is Rs 25,781 crore, The amount deposited with Sebi after the Supreme Court judgment is Rs 5,120 crore.

The amount credited to Sebi by various banks is approximately Rs 21 crore. It has also claimed having directly paid to investors 93 per cent of the total dues. However, Sebi has claimed in the last hearing that the firms owed around Rs 34,000 crore, with interest.

A bench of Justices K S Radhakrishnan and J S Khehar will consider the proposal on Wednesday as it declined to examine it on Tuesday since the group had not filed the proposal on time. The court said the new repayment schedule should have been submitted at least a day ago so that it could have gone through it.

The release of Roy and two directors, who are in Delhi’s Tihar jail since March 4, will depend upon the acceptance of the proposal by the bench. Ram Jethmalani, counsel for Roy, made a plea for the release of the three persons, saying “they are not going to run away”. The bench, however, said that it acknowledged persons were in jail and hence it also wanted to expeditiously hear the matter.

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Jethmalani, during the proceedings, contended that the trio’s fundamental right to life and liberty was violated by the court order to commit them to prison. “The procedures set under the Contempt of Court Act have not been followed. They have not been given notice and an opportunity for hearing before they were sent to jail on March 4, straight from the court. They had much to say, but were denied a hearing,” he said.

He also objected to them being kept in Tihar jail, and not a civil prison, and their expenses should be taken by the creditors. The judges did not respond to these requests.