Detention order valid, Roy to stay in jail for now

Apex court asks Group to make fresh proposal for depositing Rs 10,000 cr to get bail

The Supreme Court on Tuesday dismissed Sahara group chief Subrata Roy’s petition challenging his detention in Delhi’s Tihar jail for non-refund of the Rs 20,000 crore his group firms owed investors.

A long judicial custody looms over Roy, as he has not produced a convincing proposal to raise the Rs 10,000 crore demanded by the Court for his release.

He might still bring a proposal before Friday, when the court closes for a seven-week summer vacation. The order, given by judges K S Radhakrishnan and J S Khehar, criticised Roy’s behaviour in adopting ways to frustrate a two-year-old order on refund to investors. Two directors are also imprisoned along with him. (THE SAHARA SOAP SO FAR)

In its 207 page order, the court criticized the behavior of Roy, adopting several methods to frustrate the order passed two years ago to return the money to the investors. He displayed a “demeanour of defiance” the judgment said.

“He disobeyed not only the apex court orders but those of the Bombay High Court and the Securities Appellate Tribunal. Every order of Sebi was assailed before the next higher authority, and then before this court,” the order said.

Roy’s counsels, Ram Jethamalani, Rajeev Dhawan, C A Sundaram and a host of other luminaries had argued that he was sent to jail straight from the court without giving him an opportunity to explain his case.

The court, they argued, did not follow the procedure for action for contempt of court. They also wanted a change of the bench. The judgment, written by Justice Khehar, rejected all these contentions.

Roy had claimed that the Sahara group of companies which collected money by selling bonds (“optionally fully convertible debentures”) had fully returned all the money to investors, who are mainly said to be rickshaw-wallahs in regions where there are no banking facilities. The court stated that there was no credible evidence to back up the claim.

Commenting on the conduct of Roy and his legal team, the judges remarked: “During our entire careers as Advocates practising before the High Court and before this Court, and as Judges of different High Courts, as Chief Justices of High Courts in different States, and also as Judges of this Court, we have yet to experience a demeanour of defiance, similar to the one adopted by the Sahara companies or their promoter and directors.” It was rebellious and brazen.

The judgment added that “ there are some litigants who continue to pursue senseless and ill-considered claims, to somehow or the other, defeat the process of law. The present case is a classic illustration.” The court explained in detail how clients manipulate and waste the time of the courts in frivolous litigation.

The judges concluded observing that “it is about time the legislature evolved ways and means to curtail this unmindful activity. We are sure that an eventual determination, one way or the other, would be in the best interest of this country, as also its countrymen.”