Roy offers to complete refund Rs 24k cr in 26 months

Legal Correspondent

New Delhi, October 21

Sahara chief Subrata Roy on Friday submitted a roadmap to the Supreme Court, offering to complete the refund of about Rs 24,000 crore by the end of 2018. The fund had been raised by his group companies from about three crore small investors in the form of debentures which were subsequently declared illegal by stock market regulator SEBI.

Roy also paid Rs 200 crore on Friday and offered to pay another Rs 200 crore by the end of next month as part of the refund mechanism and sought extension of his bail till that time. A 3-member Bench headed by Chief Justice TS Thakur let Roy continue to remain on bail as he paid Rs 15 crore as advance payment of the next instalment.

The Bench, which included Justices AR Dave and AK Sikri, said the group was free to sell any of its properties and the court would not seek any explanation as to how the funds were being raised.

At the last hearing on September 28, Roy’s senior counsel Kapil Sibal had said the group had already returned about Rs 17,000 crore, while SEBI pleaded it had received only Rs 12,000 crore.

The apex court is hearing SEBI’s contempt petition against Sahara for its failure to return the investments. It has upheld SEBI’s ruling on the illegality of the debenture issue.