SC gives Subrata Roy time to surrender

In a relief to Sahara chief Subrata Roy, the Supreme Court on Friday gave him time till September 30 to surrender after his parole was cancelled earlier in the morning.

The court on Friday morning terminated the interim arrangement that granted parole to Roy and the two directors of Sahara companies - his son-in-law Ashok Roy Choudhary and Ravi Shankar Dubey -- after taking exception to senior counsel Rajeev Dhavan describing as "unfair" and "unfortunate" an earlier observation by the bench.

After Roy tendered an unconditional apology for the utterance by his counsel, in a brief order passed post lunch, the bench of Chief Justice T.S. Thakur, Justice Anil R. Dave and Justice A.K. Sikri said, "In the meantime, the interim arrangement made by this Court shall stand terminated. The contemnors are given one week's time to surrender back to custody."

The bench also said that they will hear an application, moved in the afternoon by Sahara, on September 28, by which the Sahara Chief sought recall of the order terminating the interim order granting parole.

Appearing for Roy, senior counsel Kapil Sibal said, "I apologise, offer unconditional apology, it will never happen again, I assure you...." for the utterances of the senior counsel.

Seeking recall of the order cancelling parole, Sibal told the court that the senior counsel would not appear in the matter anymore.

In the morning, the top court cancelled the parole of Subrata Roy taking exception to senior counsel Dhavan describing as "unfair" and "unfortunate" an earlier observation by the bench asking the Sahara Chief "to be in jail" if he wanted the court to hear him on SEBI's plea on auctioning of its assets including large parcels of land.

At the outset of the hearing, Dhavan had sought adjournment citing indifferent health of Sibal who represents Roy in the matter.

Soon thereafter advocate Pratap Venugopal appearing for market regulator SEBI told the bench that most of the properties given by Sahara for auctioning were attached by the Income Tax Authorities and there was no point in going ahead with the second round of auction.

The market regulator by its application had urged the court to take up for hearing its 2015 application seeking appointment of receiver for taking over the control of Sahara properties.

At this Dhavan said that SEBI was not consulting or involving them in the auction of Sahara properties and they too should be heard. At this Chief Justice in a lighter vein said that in that case you go back to jail.

The bench was irked when a few minutes later Dhavan objected to the court's observation on Roy's return to jail. This displeased the Chief Justice Thakur and he ordered termination of "interim arrangement" granting parole.

--IANS

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