New Delhi,In a sudden twist in the Sahara Group case, Supreme Court judge Justice J S Khehar has recused himself from hearing the matter following which a new bench has been constituted.
A “communication dated May 6, 2014 received from Justice J
S Khehar was placed before the Chief Justice of India on May7.On May 7 itself,
the CJI has been pleased to constitute another bench to hear the matter
relating to Sahara Group….,” Rakesh Sharma, Deputy Registrar of the apex court,
said in a release today.
The release, read out by the official at a press conference
here, said that Justice Khehar had written a letter the day when he and Justice
K S Radhakrishnan decided a petition filed by Sahara Group chief Subrata Roy.Justice
Radhakrishnan, who retired on May 14, has gone on record saying that the bench
was under immense pressure in the Sahara case.The SC official, however, did not
disclose the details of the new bench which will now hear the petitions
relating to Sahara Group.
The bench of justices K S Radhakrishnan and J S Khehar in
its May 6 judgement had upheld its order jailing Subrata Roy and rejected his
claim that rules of natural justice were not followed in the case.65-year-old
Roy, who has been in jail since March 4 for non-refund of over Rs 20,000 crore
to depositors, was asked by the court to make a fresh proposal for paying Rs
10,000 crore to get bail.
The court had passed the order on a petition filed by Roy
challenging constitutional validity of its order passed on March 4 by which he
was sent to jail for not complying with its order to deposit around Rs
20,000 crore of investors money with SEBI.
The bench in a strongly-worded judgement had come down
heavily on the Group for “systematically” frustrating and flouting all
its orders with impunity on refunding investors’ money.It had said the Group
“adopted a demeanour of defiance constituting a rebellious behaviour, not
amenable to the rule of law” and justified its decision to send Roy along with
two promoters of two Sahara companies to jail.The bench had said that it
started adopting sequentially harsher means to persuade compliance of its order
on refunding money leading to Roy’s detention after all the efforts to “cajole”
the two companies and the petitioner were “methodically circumvented”.
It had also slammed Roy’s plea seeking its recusal from hearing
the case.
“We find no merit in the contention advanced on behalf of
the petitioner, that we should recuse ourselves from the hearing of this case.
Calculated psychological offensives and mind games adopted to seek recusal of
Judges, need to be strongly repulsed.
“We deprecate such tactics and commend a similar approach
to other Courts, when they experience such behaviour,” it had said.The bench
had said that the two companies of which Roy is a promoter “flouted” various
orders passed by the SEBI, SAT, the High Court and of this Court, with impunity
which cannot be allowed.The apex court had held that various proposals made by
Roy and the Group on depositing money turned out to be “ploys to sidetrack and
derail the process of law”.It had said that the apex court, before passing the
order for sending him jail, had “immaculately” followed the procedure and Roy
and other contemnors were afforded an opportunity of oral hearing before the
order was passed.It had also brushed aside the contentions of the Group that
money had already been substantially refunded to investors saying the stand has
been rejected earlier also and the contention is untenable.
The apex court had earlier imposed a condition that Roy,
who is in jail since March 4, will be freed on bail only if he pays Rs 10,000
crore out of which Rs 5,000 crore has to be in bank guarantee and rest Rs 5,000
crore in cash.
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