The Supreme Court recently permitted the Sahara group to take loan of $1.05 billion with security as the hotels abroad. This will enable the group to raise funds for releasing its boss who was imprisoned for nearly ten months. Subrata Roy is the Chairman of Sahara group is the famous business personnel in India who was imprisoned for the reason that the group could not obey the ruling of the Court to give back billion dollars to its investors in the illegal bonds. In March 2014, the Supreme Court had directed the Sahara group to pay $1.6 billion for the release of its Chairman.
In addition, the Court also granted consent to Sahara to remortgage the hotels. But it reminded the group that it will be necessary to get the authorization from the Reserve Bank of India and it directed other authorities to observe the rules on foreign exchange. When deciding the case, the Court allowed the Chairman to utilize the makeshift office that is situated inside the premises of jail where many facilities like computers, phone etc are available with effect from January 12 to February 20. From Bank of China, the Sahara group had advanced loan by pledging its Plaza hotel in New York and Grosvenor House in London.
At present, Sahara is on the move to clear off the loans already taken and to refinance the hotels to raise additional loan. Hence it decides to take a secondary loan for temporary resolution of investments. Sahara claims that the Company had paid back the amount to most investors but SEBI and Supreme Court had rejected its claim. But, permission was granted to make use of the conference hall in the Tihar jail for the purpose of raising the amount to be deposited in the Court. The permission was given on the basis of request made by the Sahara group. The counsel appearing for SEBI and Shekhar Naphade, amicus curiae did not raise any objection on the attempt made by Sahara Group to move for negotiation to settle the matter.