Sahara asked to pay Rs 10,000 crore to secure Subrata Roy's bail

NEW DELHI: Subrata Roy's Sahara said on Saturday they have been told by the Supreme Court to pay Rs 10,000 crore for securing the release of company's chief on bail. Reacting to a report that the group has been asked to pay Rs 40,000 crore, the group said its two companies have been asked to provide a proposal for complying with the remaining amount of bail of Rs 5,000 crore in cash and Rs 5,000 crore as bank guranantee.

The group said that it has already deposited Rs 5,120 crore, besides returning money to most of investors. It has said that it now has a liability of little over 2,000 crore.

It has disputed the Sebi's claim that it owes a much larger amount to its investors.

As for the court's statement that it would appoint a receiver to supervise the sale of group's assets if the group failed to clear its liabilities to investors, the group said the court agreed not to press the issue after its lawyer Kapil Sibal stressed that 'a serious attempt had been made for finalizing a deal for which document will be provided to the amicus curiae and the counsel for Sebi'.

In a statement, the group said that the Supreme Court agreed that "out-house facility" sought by Roy for completing negotiations for raising money against company's asserts can be extended up to two months if the company came up with a concrete proposal so that bail conditions can be fulfilled. Roy and two directors of the company— Ashok Roy Chudhary and Ravishankar Dube— have been allowed to use laptop and mobile phones for five hours a day to hold negotiations for asset sale.

The group said the hearing the SC on Saturday saw Sibal telling the bench of justices TS Thakur, Anil Dave and A K Sikri that out of the 12,000 crore deposited with Sebi for refunding investors, the market regulator has barely disbursed any amount.