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Appear before court, Supreme Court tells Sahara chief Subrata Roy & directors

The court summoned Roy and his two Directors, Ravi Shankar Dubey, and Ashok Roy Chaudhary, and said, "Contemnors are summoned to enable the court to pass appropriate orders so that law can take its own course."

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The Supreme Court on Thursday summoned Sahara chief Subrata Roy on February 28, along with his two Directors, for violating court's repeated orders requiring the company to deposit over Rs 25,000 crore with the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI).

SEBI had moved a contempt petition against Roy for non-compliance of the court's orders since August 31, 2012, when Sahara Group was directed by the court to return the money collected out of a debenture scheme started in March 2008 and October 16, 2009. Back then, the court had asked Sahara to repay the entire amount with 15 per cent interest within six months and had arranged for a Sahara-SEBI fund account in a nationalised bank so that interest amount could be earned.

On Thursday, SEBI informed the apex bench, headed by Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi, that in all these years, Sahara deposited a sum of Rs 15,000 crore into the account. Senior advocate Arvind Datar, who appeared for SEBI, informed the bench, also comprising Justices AK Sikri and SK Kaul, that the total amount to be paid by Sahara comes to Rs 25,781 crore. The Rs 15,000 crore lying deposited has earned Rs 4,800 crore by way of interest.

The bench remarked, "This court has repeatedly said that Rs 25,781 crore has to be deposited. You have violated the order. Why should we grant you any further indulgence? If you are not able to comply with orders passed by this court, the law will take its own course."

The court summoned Roy and his two Directors, Ravi Shankar Dubey, and Ashok Roy Chaudhary, and said, "Contemnors are summoned to enable the court to pass appropriate orders so that law can take its own course."

Roy has been summoned in the past too. It was on one such occasion on March 4, 2014, that the court had ordered Roy and his two Directors to be sent to Tihar Jail. They remained in jail for two years till in 2016 when the court granted him bail on furnishing a deposit of Rs 10,000 crore.

Senior advocate Vikas Singh, representing Saharas, tried to hide behind the fact that the amount to be generated was huge and due to the slump in real estate market, it was impossible to find buyers for its properties. He also claimed that Sahara refunded the money to its depositors. However, SEBI has not verified the list of depositors supplied to them by the company.

Rejecting this argument, the bench said, "This is your argument always and we have held in the past that verification will proceed only after the payment is made. This amount was to be paid within six months of our order passed in 2012. We have granted you too much of indulgence."

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