SC rejects Roy plea for house arrest

IANS/New DelhiThe Supreme Court yesterday turned down a request by Sahara Group chief Subrata Roy to be placed under house arrest, instead of continuing to be lodged in the Tihar Jail, in order to mobilise Rs100bn to return investors’ money - a condition to secure his release.“We have not passed an order of arrest. If that be so we would have sent him to civil prison. We only passed the order of judicial custody. He is under our custody,” the court said.Senior lawyer Ram Jethamalani urged the court that Roy be placed under house arrest at least for a week so that he could meet international parties who are willing to take Sahara assets. He also pointed to the ensuing three holidays.“The holidays are coming. Who will go to the jail to talk? It destroys the total credibility... he is not absconding. Please keep him under house arrest. He will report to the court every day.”The court on March 4 sent Roy and two directors of the group for not complying with its August 31, 2012 and subsequent orders to return the investors’ money.In the course of its arguments, the market regulator Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) said: “What order can the Supreme Court pass to secure the obedience of its order?”Quoting an American judge, SEBI’s lawyer Arvind Dattar said: “A court that can’t enforce its own order is a court without a judge.”Dattar said “since August 26, 2013, after 17 hearings, stage after stage, this court has found that its orders were not being complied with” and it was faced with a deliberate and wilful disobedience of its order.Dattar told the court that its power could not be circumscribed by any confines.The court on March 26 had asked Sahara to deposit with its registry Rs100bn as a part payment of the Rs240bn that it had to return to investors which the group’s two companies - Sahara India Real Estate Corporation Ltd and Sahara Housing Investment Corporation Ltd had collected through optionally fully convertible debentures.