SC extends Sahara chief Subrata Roy’s parole till October 24

New Delhi: The Supreme Court today extended the interim parole of Subrata Roy till October 24 and asked him to deposit Rs 200 crore within that time. The Apex Court also asked his lawyer to give a roadmap about how he will pay approximately Rs 12,000 crore to the market regulator Securities and Exchange Board of India. After spending over two years in jail, Subrata Roy has been out since May when his mother passed away.

 Later the court kept extending his parole on the condition of depositing Rs 500 crore with SEBI for refunding investors by August first week. Earlier, the apex court had agreed to hear on October 3 a fresh plea of Roy and others with regard to grant of bail. In one of the last hearings, the apex court had asked the Sahara group to reveal the source of the Rs 18,000 crore it had claimed to have paid back to the investors. Subrata Roy was granted parole last on May 6 this year which was extended by two months on May 11.

Roy was in Tihar jail since March 4, 2014, for not complying with the Apex Court's orders in connection with a long dispute with the market regulator, Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI). The SEBI alleged that Roy allegedly failed to comply with 2012 Apex court order directing him to return investors more than Rs 20,000 crore with 15% interest that his two companies Sahara India Real Estate Corp Ltd and the Sahara Housing Finance Corp Ltd had raised through optionally fully convertible debentures (OFCD) in 2007 and 2008. On May 6, this year, the Apex Court had granted four weeks' custody parole to Roy to perform his mother's (Chabbi Roy) last rites, Chhabi Roy, 95, passed away in Lucknow on May 6 this year after a prolonged illness for over three years.

Sahara, once one of India's most high-profile firms, had in the past made several failed attempts, to raise the bail money using its prized overseas hotels that include the Plaza in New York and Grosvenor House in London. The group says it has paid more than 80 percent of the dues to the bondholders, but SEBI disputes that and said it has not paid more than Rs 10,000 crores. (UNI)