 "SC gives Sahara a final chance to raise funds")
If this failed, too, the judges warned, they'd appoint one or more receivers for its assets.
“We will give one more opportunity. If the third attempt fails, we won’t allow it to linger,” said judge T S Thakur, after senior lawyer Kapil Sibal, who appeared in the case for the first time on Friday, pleaded for a final chance.
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The court also allowed Sibal’s request for additional communication time of three hours a day for Roy, during which he can use mobile phones and laptops within the prision. The matter was adjourned to March 23.
The group was required to deposit Rs 5,000 crore in cash and an equal amount in a bank guarantee to secure the bail. Roy is lodged in the capital’s Tihar jail for failure of two of his companies to comply with the court order to refund Rs 24,029 crore collected from about 29 million investors by issuing bonds, found to be illegal by Sebi, the securities market regulator.
The court emphasised that the bail amount was the ‘bare minimum’ and the group had been struggling to arrange even that . “You have to plan for the larger amount. If it is taking one year for the bare minimum, how long will you take for the full amount?” asked Thakur, reminding the group of its dues to the exchequer and the income-tax department that total more than Rs 40,000 crore, along with interest.
The court did not allow the special negotiation facilities, including an overnight stay in a separate conference room, that Roy wanted for eight more weeks to finalise the new deal he was said to be in the process of finalising. The court wanted the group to give concrete plans in a week to Sebi and the amicus curiae (a counsel appointed by the court to assist it in clarifying the issues) for the case before allowing these.
“Our experience has been that two previous attempts made with the help of the concessions we granted has not led to anything,” said Thakur. Earlier, the group presented the outline of a proposal involving remortgaging of hotel properties abroad to raise the Rs 5,000 crore bank guarantee required for the bail. The deal involved BBVN, a new investor, purchasing the mortgaged assets from Bank of China, and a bank guarantee being produced by HSBC.
Shekhar Naphade, the case's amicus, raised objections, He said Sahara was not disclosing all the material details and the court had to depend on media reports to learn about developments such as an appointment of an administrator by Bank of China. He also pleaded that Sahara be made accountable for its statements referring to its earlier certification of Mirach Capital as a ‘well-known’ and reputed investor, which turned out to be misleading. Sahara later accused Mirach of cheating it with a forged e-mail. “How did you give the certificate?” asked Naphade.
Representatives of Mirach, present in the court, objected to the Sahara claim, saying they were also recipients of the allegedly forged e-mail and did not produce it.