SC to Tihar jail: Are you ready to give Subrata Roy wi-fi and video conferencing?

The Supreme Court will hear on Friday Sahara chief Subrata Roy’s plea for shifting from the Tihar jail to a guest house in order to negotiate deals with prospective buyers of the company’s foreign assets. According to reports, the court has askedthe government to work out a plan to shift Roy to the jail outhouse.

Last week , Roy had moved the Supreme Court seeking its permission for shifting him from the prison cell to Tihar jail guest house situated within its premises to enable him to hold negotiations to sell his properties in India and abroad to raise Rs 10,000 crore as the bail amount.

Roy had also pleaded to use the conference room at Delhi’s Tihar Jail.The plea said that prospective buyers want Roy himself to be present during all negotiations. Sahara Group has requested the apex court to permanently shift Roy to the Tihar guest house where buyers can be directly brought without any hindrance.

Roy’s lawyers also wanted facilitiesincluding laptops and Wi-Fi to be able to meet with representatives of prospective buyers and conduct negotiations through videoconferencing. Jail officials say any such facilities would have to be paid for by Sahara.

Sahara, whose assets include the landmark Plaza hotel in New York and Grosvenor House in London, has offered to sell its three overseas hotels to meet the payment demands.

Saharas have also sought lifting of restriction of six hours a day granted to Roy and two other jailed directors for negotiations.

Roy, who was sent to jail on March 4 this year for non- refund of over Rs 20,000 crore to depositors, was asked by the court to pay Rs 10,000 crore to get bail, out of which Rs 5,000 crore has to be made in cash and rest of the amount through bank guarantees.

Sahara has so far raised Rs 3,117 crore which has been deposited with the market regulator.The group, however, has been claiming that it has already repaid money to 93 percent investors.