Sahara Group agrees to pay Rs 10,000 crore to bail out Subrata Roy

New Delhi: The Sahara Group on Friday informed the Supreme Court that it was about to finalise the proposal to sell the three offshore properties to enable it to raise Rs10,000 crores for its chief Subrata Roy and two directors to come out on bail. On March 23, a three-judge Bench of Justices T.S. Thakur, Anil R. Dave and A.K. Sikri granted three months time to Sahara to finalise the proposals.

During the resumed hearing on Friday, senior counsel Kapil Sibal, appearing for the Sahara group, submitted that it was in the process of finalising the buyers and wanted to furnish bank guarantee to comply with the orders.  The bench told Mr Sibal that the way in which the company was struggling to raise even Rs 10,000 crore for Mr Roy to be released on bail, how long it would take to deposit the balance amount.

However, Mr Sibal disputed the figure and said the balance amount repayable, if any, was in dispute and had to be argued before passing order. Senior counsel Arvind P. Datar appearing for Sebi submitted that the total amount repayable to depositors was to the tune of Rs 24,700 crore with 15 per cent interest and the Supreme Court must ensure that the balance amount was repaid.

When Mr Sibal pleaded for permission to use certain portions of the sale proceeds to meet payments like taxes and salary dues, Mr Datar said “the company cannot be allowed to divert its proceeds. ”Justice Thakur remi-nded Mr Datar “you (Sebi) have frozen Sahara’s assets and they cannot sell their properties. So, how can they pay salaries when some of the operations have also been curtailed.” The bench said it would hear in detail on this application on May 14.