In a setback for Sahara Group, the Supreme Court on Thursday ordered the personal appearance of its chief, Subroto Roy, on February 28 to face "appropriate orders" so that "law can take its course" against him in a contempt case.
A Bench of Chief Justice of India Ranjan Gogoi, Justices A.K. Sikri and S.K. Kaul said the "meat of the matter" is Sahara is yet to pay the entirety of over ₹25,000-odd crore in principal amount it owed its investors.
Chief Justice Gogoi cut short the submissions made by both the Sahara and SEBI lawyers, saying "we are not sitting here to sell their properties". The Court said it has been hearing the case and passing orders from time to time for the past two years, but to no end. This cannot go on, it added.
"If you are not able to comply with the orders of this court, let law take its course. You are in violation of the court's orders. If you are unable to deposit, let whoever is responsible appear in person here," Chief Justice Gogoi addressed Sahara counsel and senior advocate Vikas Singh.
This was in response to Mr. Singh's laments that the real estate market is down. “Nothing is selling,” Mr. Singh said.
The last hearing in the case was in July 2018. "Nothing much has changed in the past six months," Chief Justice Gogoi observed.
In July 2018, the Court had given a ray of hope for Sahara by putting off the proposed auction of the group's prized Aamby Valley properties after the auction notice failed to elicit any response from prospective buyers.
Roy, who spent almost two years in jail, has been on parole since May 6, 2017. The parole was granted the first time to enable him attend the funeral of his mother. It has been extended since then.
Besides Roy, two other directors — Ravi Shankar Dubey and Ashok Roy Choudhary — were arrested for failure of the group’s two companies — Sahara India Real Estate Corporation (SIRECL) and Sahara Housing Investment Corp Ltd (SHICL) — to comply with the court’s August 31, 2012 order to return the money to their investors.
