Supreme Court issues non-bailable warrant against ’Sahara’ Subrata Roy

mangaloretoday.com / NDTV

New Delhi, Feb 26: The Supreme Court on Wednesday issued a non-bailable warrant against Sahara chief Subrata Roy for failing to appear before it in connection with the long-running case with market regulator Sebi. The arrest warrant comes a day after the top court rejected Mr Roy’s plea for exemption from personal appearance.

Directing the police to produce Mr Roy on March 4, the top court said, "The arms of this court are very long. Yesterday you made a similar request. We declined. Today you are making the same request. When other directors have appeared, why can’t he?"

 

Senior advocate Ram Jethmalani, who was representing Mr Roy, told the top court that "his (Mr Roy’s) mother is ill and he has to be with his mother."

The Supreme Court, however declined this request and said, "For the last two years we granted exemption from personal appearance".

Hemant Sahai of Hemant Sahai and Associates told NDTV that the police will have to formally arrest Subrata Roy or ask him to appear in court. "Mr Roy can come on his own and ask for cancellation of the non-bailable warrant or he can move an application through his lawyers that he will be appearing in the court."

Mr Roy and three other Sahara directors had been summoned over the non-refund of Rs. 19,000 crore by two Sahara companies to millions of investors. Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) said the funds were raised illegally and the Supreme Court in August 2012 had ordered Sahara to refund the money raised from investors with interest.

Sahara has maintained that it had deposited nearly Rs. 5,000 crore with Sebi and refunded the rest of money to investors, a claim rejected by the regulator. The Supreme Court had asked Sahara to produce documents pertaining to the source of money it claims to have repaid investors.

The top court had also asked Sahara to deposit the original title deeds of properties worth Rs. 20,000 crore with Sebi as a guarantee towards the payment of investors’ money. Sahara has been restrained from selling any property.