NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court on Friday extended the parole of Sahara chief Subrata Roy until September 23, granted to him on humanitarian grounds after his mother passed away.
The decision to extend the relief was taken by a Bench headed by Chief Justice of India T S Thakur in-chamber as his parole was to end on Friday.
The regular Special Bench of CJI and justices A R Dave and A K Sikri was not available.
Sahara’s counsel Keshav Mohan said that a draft of Rs 353 crore has been deposited in the SEBI-Sahara account. Following this, the Bench extended the relief to 68-year-old Roy till September 23, the next date of hearing.
The apex court had on September 2 asked the Sahara Group to come clean by disclosing sources from where it had raised Rs 25,000 crore and paid its investors in cash, observing that it is difficult to digest as such a huge amount cannot fall from the heavens.
The court had on August 3 extended Roy’s parole till Friday with a condition that he has to deposit to Rs 300 crore with SEBI.
The apex court had granted parole to Roy on May 6 for four weeks on humanitarian grounds following the death of his mother Chhabi Roy in Lucknow after prolonged illness.
Besides Roy, the court had also granted parole to jailed Sahara director Ashok Roy Choudhary.
It had said they were free to meet prospective buyers of properties and move within the country under police escort.
Roy has been lodged in Tihar jail since March 4, 2014, on the orders of the apex court in connection with a long-running dispute with market regulator SEBI.
The apex court had allowed the Sahara group to go ahead with sale and alienation of its properties to raise an amount of Rs 5,000 crore as bank guarantee which it had to deposit in addition to Rs 5,000 crore to get bail for Roy.
For the Sahara chief’s interim bail, the court had put conditions like depositing Rs 5,000 crore in cash and a bank guarantee of equal amount and tough terms, including payment of the entire Rs 36,000 crore, which includes interest, to be paid back to the investors.
The Sahara chief had earlier told the court that by December, the group would be in a position to fulfill all conditions and talks were underway with Canara Bank for Rs 1,500 crore bank guarantee.