Supreme Court puts Sahara order on hold

The Supreme Court kept on abeyance the order passed in anger on Friday morning directing Sahara Chief Subrata Roy to surrender to custody in one week by cancelling his parole and listing the matter on October 3.

In the morning, a three-judge bench headed by the Chief Justice T.S. Thakur, was furious when senior counsel Rajeev Dhavan, appearing for Sahara chief, sought extension of parole which expired on Friday.

The CJI told the counsel “then pay Rs 300 cr.” When Mr Dahvan resisted and said “we can’t pay”, the CJI angrily ordered: “Let them go back to jail.” The bench, which included Justices Anil R. Dave and A.K. Sikri, then left the court. The bench gave one week time to Mr Roy to surrender and posted the matter for further hearing on October 3.

Earlier when Mr Dhavan pleaded for extension of parole granted to Mr Roy and two other directors in May, when Roy’s mother passed away, the bench was reluctant to talk of extending it without further payments of dues to the court. Mr Dhavan informed the bench that the Saharas had already deposited the last instalment of Rs 352 cr of the Rs 5,000 cr cash component, being the bail condition.

The bench then asked SEBI counsel Pratap Venugopal whether SEBI was able to raise any money from selling off some of the properties of Sahara. Mr Venugopal said that most of the properties had already been attached by the IT department and only three were at its disposal. He alleged that Sahara was not allowing these to go ahead and insisting on auctioning it themselves.

Senior counsel Kapil Sibal, who was unwell, later rushed to the court. At this, the CJI told Mr Sibal that the institution had to be respected and lawyers, howsoever eloquent and scholarly, cannot raise their voice against the court and try to brow beat the judges. Mr Sibal said he was giving his personal assurance that no such incident will ever happen again.

The CJI told Mr Sibal “It’s not that we enjoy this. It’s painful for us too. We have a very high tolerance threshold.” Mr Sibal agreed with the CJI and again said he was apologising profusely for what had happened and requested the court to hear the matter. The CJI told Mr Sibal that he will speak to the other two judges and pass an order.

The brief order passed in the evening said that the special bench will sit again on September 28 to consider the application for modification of the order passed in the morning directing Mr Roy to surrender within a week.