SC looking at relaxing terms for release of Sahara chief

Dhavan contended that the bench did not even follow the Supreme Court rules in sending Roy and two other directors to Delhi’s Tihar jail.

The Supreme Court on Wednesday said it was contemplating to relax Rs 10,000 crore-payment condition to enable Sahara chief Subrata Roy to come out of jail, even as the group alleged that the detention order was “pre-written” and the judges simply pronounced it on March 4

Challenging the validity of the detention order, Sahara counsel Rajiv Dhavan contended that the manner in which the order to send Roy along with two directors Ravi Shankar Dubey and Ashok Roy Choudhary, was pronounced, it appeared as if the order was already prepared.

“If I could say this, it was a pre-written order and was just pronounced in the court,” said Dhavan, adding neither the court nor the Sebi had been “entirely fair” with them.
A bench of Justices K S Radhakrishnan and J S Khehar shot back: “You may try to provoke us but we are not going to be provoked by this”.

Responding, Dhavan said he was not trying to provoke the judges but was flagging the “serious issues”.

“This case required an unfair prosecutor. Your Lordship has been so rigid about this case that it became almost impossible to argue before this court. Whatever Sebi said was believed to be right and whatever we said was held to be wrong. We may be in technical violation of the order but there was no wilful default of any nature,” he said.

Dhavan contended that the bench did not even follow the Supreme Court rules in sending Roy and two other directors to Delhi’s Tihar jail on March 4. “People cannot do business sitting in the jail. People cannot do business with frozen bank accounts and all properties lying under the orders of the court,” he said.

At this, the court said they were considering relaxing the condition of paying Rs 10,000 crore to secure the release of Roy and others. “We thought on our own to modify certain conditions since you said you are unable to collect money. It is not final but we did consider it on our own,” the bench told Dhavan.

Story continues below this ad

The court also said it was “willing” to defreeze the bank accounts of Sahara to raise the money towards refunding the investors.

The court, which had last year frozen all bank accounts of companies and also restrained them from selling any properties without its approval, asked the group to furnish requisite information and move formal application in this regard. The court will hear the case on Thursday.

Last week, the court had turned down a request by the group to release Roy from jail and keep him in house arrest or office arrest to facilitate collection of money.

It also clarified that the trio were not under arrest but were in the custody of the court in Tihar jail.

Stay updated with the latest - Click here to follow us on Instagram