Zee Media Bureau
New Delhi: Sahara Group on Thursday informed the Supreme Court of its inability to immediately deposit Rs 10,000 crore for securing bail of its chief Subrata Roy, who is currently lodged in the Tihar Central Jail in a case related to refund of investors' money.
The apex court had earlier asked the group to deposit 10,000 crore, as one of the pre-conditions, for securing Roy's release.
Instead, the Sahara lawyers today pleaded the apex court to release Roy on payment of Rs 2,500 crore and assured the highest court to pay rest of 2,500 crore in cash within three weeks.
The court has, however, dismissed Sahara's proposal.
A day after the apex court imposed a condition that Roy will be freed on bail only if he pays Rs.10,000 crore out of which Rs 5,000 crore has to be in bank guarantee, Sahara Chief's lawyers told it on March 28 that providing a guarantee of this size with lower margin cash backed by assets will take at least three months.
Sahara chairman Subrata Roy, 65, was arrested on February 28 after failing to appear at a contempt hearing in a long-running legal battle between the group and Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) over refund of billions of dollars to investors in outlawed bonds.
Roy, who has been in Tihar jail for the last 22 days since March 4, had submitted that the apex court's order for detaining him for not paying Rs 20,000 of investors money with SEBI is illegal and unconstitutional and sought quashing of the order.
Along with the Group's other two Directors Ravi Shankar Dubey and Ashok Roy Choudhary, Roy has been in judicial custody since March 4 for not abiding by the apex court's order for depositing Rs 20,000 crore of investors money with SEBI.
With agency inputs
