SC refuses to let Subrata Roy travel abroad

The Supreme Court Tuesday turned down the plea by Sahara India group chief Subrata Roy to travel abroad to take care of his overseas business interests, saying that its nod was tied to the company showing that investors' money has been repaid.

A bench of Justice K.S. Radhakrishnan and Justice Jagdish Singh Khehar declined the plea of senior counsel C.A.Sundaram that Roy be allowed to leave the country as he has his business interest spread in many countries and he needed to attend them.

Sundaram requested the court to allow Roy, assuring he would present himself before the court as and when it so desired within three days' notice.

Declining the plea, the court said that all that Sahara India has to do is to show that the investors' money that its two companies - Sahara India Real Estate Corporation Ltd. and Sahara Housing Investment Corporation Ltd. - had collected through Optionally Fully Convertible Debentures (OFCD) has been returned and the mode and manner of returning the funds.

"Everything is going in a circle. Money was going from pocket to another pocket of Sahara group's companies. We want to finish this aspect of the case... If you give the source, then a day after, we would allow you to go abroad," the court told senior counsel.

In response to the apex court's direction of Jan 9, Sahara has told market regulator, Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI), that Sahara India (partnership firm) received Rs.20,972.02 crore for the refund to the OFCD holders of SIRECL by termination of all MOUs/ agreements in May/June 2012, and all recipients were "directed", "instructed" or "called upon" to refund amounts to Sahara India.

The SEBI told the court that if "all the MOUs etc. were terminated between May 9, 2012, and June 12, 2012, all 'directions' for refund were given between May 11, 2012, and June 15, 2012. The books of Sahara India (partnership firm) should then reveal the receipts after May/June 2012, insofar as SIRECL is concerned".

Directing the listing of the matter on Feb 11, the court asked Sahara India to furnish the details of the flow of Rs.20,072.02 crore that it had mobilised by terminating its all the MoUs between May 9 and June 12, 2012.