Last chance to Sahara to negotiate deal for Subroto Roy's release: Supreme Court

New Delhi: Sahara Group was on Friday granted the third and last opportunity by the Supreme Court to negotiate a deal for selling its offshore properties for raising Rs 10,000 crore to ensure the release of its Chief Subrato Roy, who has been in jail for a year for non-refund of over Rs 20,000 crore to depositors. The apex court, which was inclined to appoint a 'court receiver' for alienating the assets of the Group, refrained from passing such an order after its newly-engaged senior counsel Kapil Sibal pleaded for another chance for complying with the directions.

"We are inclined to accept the submission of the senior counsel and therefore, we grant another opportunity to negotiate the proposed deal.

"The outline of the proposed deal has to be shared within a week with the SEBI and amicus curiae," a bench headed by Justice T S Thakur said while hinting that two to three months time can be given for working out the proposed deal.

However, the bench declined a plea for extension of special facilities to Roy in Tihar Jail precincts to negotiate the proposed deals. It only agreed to extend the time of two hours a day earlier allowed to interact with potential buyers by another three hours keeping in view the international time zone with the facility of two laptops and mobile phones.

The bench said the facility of using the conference room in Tihar Jail cannot be extended till the "seriousness" of the proposed deal gets examined by the market regulator SEBI and senior advocate Shekhar Naphade, who is assisting the court as amicus curiae in the matter that the bench, also comprising Justices A R Dave and A K Sikri, agreed with Sahara's plea that the proposed deal should be maintained confidential by SEBI and the amicus curiae. Sibal also accepted that the outline of the proposed deal shall be furnished to the SEBI and amicus curiae along with all required documents to demonstrate that it is a "serious attempt".