Zee Media Bureau
New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Thursday allowed Sahara chief Subrata Roy to use the conference room in Tihar jail complex for another 15 days in order to wind up negotiations with potential buyers for selling his three luxury hotels in New York and London to raise Rs 10,000 crore to get regular bail.
Roy's advocate Keshav Mohan said negotiations with foreign buyers are at the final stage and we are getting prices for our overseas hotels well and above their market valuation.
The apex court, however, said that no further extension will be given to Roy to finalise the negotiations.
In an application filed in the apex court, Roy on Wednesday submitted that talks with the buyers are going in the right direction and pleaded with the court for a 15-day extension to use the conference room in Tihar jail complex for holding consultations.
The apex court had on August 1 allowed Roy and two directors of his group to use the conference room in Tihar jail complex for 10 days with effect from August 5 to hold negotiations with potential buyers.
It had asked Delhi Government to issue notification by August 4 for converting the conference room into a jail which can be used by Roy and two jailed directors of Sahara for 10 working days from 06:00 AM to 08:00 PM for holding negotiations with prospective buyers of hotels in New York and London.
The bench had also permitted them to avail the service of three staff- two secretarial and one technical person during the hours of negotiations with a clear direction that they would not be allowed to stay overnight.
It was made clear that Saharas would foot the bills for using the Wi-fi facility of the conference room and get the other gadgets like landline telephones with STD/ISD facilities on their own cost. They were also allowed to have a mobile phone, computers- desktop and laptop and printers.
Roy, 65, who has been in jail for the past five months, had pleaded that he was committed to follow apex court's direction and sought its permission for shifting to Tihar jail guest house for a week to enable him to hold negotiations for selling his properties in India and abroad to raise Rs 10,000 crore in order to get a regular bail.
The apex court had refused to release Roy on interim bail or parole but had allowed selling of his luxury hotels.
It had also appointed senior advocate Shekhar Naphade as amicus curiae to assist the court in dealing with the case in which the group is supposed to pay around Rs 37,000 crore for winding up the proceedings in the apex court.
Roy, who was sent to jail on March 4 this year for non- refund of over Rs 20,000 crore to depositors, was asked by the court to pay Rs 10,000 crore for getting bail, out of which Rs 5,000 crore must be in cash and rest of the amount should be in the form bank guarantee.
Sahara has so far raised Rs 3,117 crore which has been deposited with SEBI.
The group, however, has been claiming that it has already repaid money to 93 percent investors.
With agency inputs
