Tightening the noose around Sahara group for not refunding Rs 20,000 crore investors money, the Supreme Court today barred its chief Subrata Roy from leaving the country and also restrained it from selling any of its properties.
The apex court said that its order for handing over title deeds of Rs 20,000 crore unencumbered properties to SEBI was not followed by the group in "letter and spirit" and prevented Roy along with other directors of the group Vandana Bhargava, Ravi Shankar Dubey and Ashok Roy Choudhary from leaving the country.
A bench of justices K S Radhakrishnan and J S Khehar directed that none of the company in the group would part away any of its properties without its permission.
During the hearing senior advocate C A Sundaram, appearing for Roy, tried his best to convince the bench that it has complied with its order but SEBI demolished his arguments saying that the group overvalued its properties and did not hand over all original title deeds of assets worth Rs 20,000 crore.
SEBI's counsel and senior advocate Arvind Dattar informed the court that worth of 106-acre land in Versova has been valued at Rs 19,000 crore whose official value is mere Rs 118.42 crore. He also said that land cannot be used for any development as it comes in green zone.
The bench also agreed with his contention saying such valuation is not acceptable and asked Dattar to find other properties of Sahara which can be considered as surety for Rs 20,000 crore.
In the mean time it passed order restraining Roy from leaving the country and posted the case for hearing on December 11.
