Subrata Roy seeks 10 more days from SC to finalise selling of hotels

Mumbai: Sahara chief, Subrata Roy seeks ten more daysfrom Supreme Court to finalise selling of his three luxury hotels in New York and London.

Earlier, the apex court had allowed Roy to use the conference room of the Tihar Jail to negotiate the sale of his luxury hotels to raise Rs 10,000 crore so the money can be deposited as ordered by the court to secure his bail. Roy's lawyers said the process had been delayed by reports that the Sultan of Brunei had made a bid to purchase the hotels. The reports had sparked protests in New York because of Brunei's plan to introduce punishments for same-sex acts in the oil-rich East Asian state. The Sultan of Brunei later dismissed the reports that he had made a $2-billion bid for the Plaza, Grosvenor House and another Sahara hotel property, the Dream Downtown in New York.

Subrata Roy who has been in jail for the past five months, had pleaded that he was committed to follow apex court's direction and sought its permission for shifting to Tihar jail guest house for a week to enable him to hold negotiations to sell his properties in India and abroad to raise Rs 10,000 crore to get regular bail. The apex court had refused to release Roy on interim bail or parole but had allowed selling of his luxury hotels.

Roy, who was sent to jail on March 4 this year for non-refund of over Rs 20,000 crore to depositors, was asked by the court to pay Rs 10,000 crore to get bail, out of which Rs 5,000 crore in cash and rest of the amount in bank guarantee. Sahara has so far raised Rs 3,117 crore which has been deposited with SEBI. The group, however, has been claiming that it has already repaid money to 93 per cent investors.