No custodial parole to Unitech MD Sanjay Chandra

The Supreme Court on Monday did not entertain a plea by Unitech Managing Director Sanjay Chandra for eight-week "custodial parole" as he said the people he was negotiating with to raise money were not willing to meet him in jail.

"Buyers do not want to come and meet me in (Tihar) jail," Chandra's lawyer Ranjit Kumar told Chief Justice Misra, Justice A.M. Khanwilkar and Justice D.Y. Chandrachud as senior counsel Mukul Rohatgi, also appearing for Unitech, urged the court to grant the parole to the head of the crisis-ridden real estate major.

Senior counsel Kumar said that a deal had been struck with two independents entities for the sale of two properties in Chennai to raise about Rs 400 crore -- Rs 229 crore and Rs 170 crore each.

The court asked the buyers of the Chennai-based properties to be present in the court on the next date of hearing -- February 16 -- to prove their bonafides and come with the draft of the amount they have to pay for purchasing the assets.

Initially, when Kumar told the court that two Chennai properties were being sold for Rs 500 crore, the court observed: "You get Rs 500 crore and you deposit Rs 80 crore."

The top court had on December 13 averted the takeover of Unitech by the government as it stayed a National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT) order suspending Unitech's nine directors and allowing the Centre to appoint its nominees in their place.

It stayed the NCLT order after Attorney General K.K. Venugopal regretted the government's moving the tribunal without first approaching the top court which was already seized of the matter.

Chandra and his brother Ajay were arrested in April last year after investors, who did not get flats in the company projects as promised, filed complaints of cheating against them.

They were sent in judicial custody after the trial court refused to extend the three- month interim bail granted to them in April.

The Delhi High Court too refused to extend the interim bail that ended on August 10.

--IANS

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