Jailed Indian tycoon seeks more time to seal hotel deals

Sahara Housingfina

13/08/2014 13:23

MUMBAI, Aug 13 (Reuters) - Jailed Indian business tycoon 
Subrata Roy, working from a high-tech office in prison, has 
requested more time to negotiate the sale of some of his luxury 
hotels to help to secure bail. 
    Roy, chairman of the Sahara conglomerate, was initially 
given 10 days by the Supreme Court to talk to potential bidders 
for three hotels, including Grosvenor House in London and the 
New York Plaza, to raise $1.6 billion for bail. 
    Roy has been given an office with 600 sq ft (56 sq metres) 
of space inside New Delhi's Tihar jail complex, where he can 
hold video conferences, use computers and receive visitors to 
try to sell or mortgage the hotels.  ID:nL4N0QD28L  
    The initial deadline for using these facilities is set to 
end on Aug. 20. 
    Keshav Mohan, a lawyer for Sahara, told Reuters on Wednesday 
that a 15-day extension had been sought for continued use of the 
facilities in prison. "The court is likely to hear the matter 
tomorrow," Mohan said. 
    A spokesman for Sahara declined to comment on the extension 
request. 
    Roy was jailed in March after he failed to appear at a 
contempt hearing in the long-running dispute with the capital 
markets watchdog over the company's failure to repay billions of 
dollars to investors who were sold outlawed bonds. 
    He has yet to be charged over the dispute and denies any 
wrongdoing. His Sahara group has vast real estate, media and 
hotel interests, part-owns a Formula 1 team and used to sponsor 
the Indian cricket team.         
    Roy calls himself "managing worker and chairman" of Sahara 
and chief guardian of the "world's biggest family", overseeing 
businesses with almost a million staff and agents. 
 
 (Reporting by Suchitra Mohanty and Devidutta Tripathy; writing 
by Sumeet Chatterjee; Editing by Shadia Nasralla) 
 ((sumeet.chatterjee@thomsonreuters.com; +91-22-61807068; 
Reuters Messaging: 
sumeet.chatterjee.thomsonreuters.com@reuters.net)) 
 
Keywords: INDIA SAHARA/PRISON