Aamby Valley to go under the hammer in October

Subrata Roy's crown jewel, Aamby Valley project, will go under the hammer on October 10 and 11. On Monday, the Supreme Court denied any relief to Roy's Sahara group and ordered Bombay High Court, the official liquidator, to go ahead with the auction proceedings.

If all goes well, and Aamby valley is sold, the successful bidder will have to deposit the money by January 2018 and the final sale will be approved by the bench of Chief Justice of India Dipak Misra along with Justices Ranjan Gogoi and AK Sikri.

"We are constrained to state that the respondent-contemnor (Subrato Roy) in his own way has treated this Court as a laboratory and has made a maladroit effort to play, possibly thinking that he can survive on the ventilator as long as he can. He would have been well advised that a person who goes on a ventilator may not survive for long and, in any case, a time would come when he has to be comatosed," the bench said on Monday while denying relief.

"Grant of further time to the respondent-contemnor and entertaining post-dated cheques which are dated 11 November 2017, would tantamount to travesty of justice and extending unwarranted sympathy to a person who is indubitably an abuser of the process of law. He, who thinks or for that matter harbours the notion that he can play with law, is under wrong impression," the bench said in a strongly worded order.

At the previous hearing, when Sahara failed to deposit the requisite amount in the refund account, the apex court ordered the Bombay High Court, to go ahead and initiate the auction of Aamby Valley.

The more than 8,000-acre township located 200 kilometres from Mumbai and valued at more than Rs 34,000 crore is Sahara's crown jewel in its portfolio. The sale of this property would strike a blow and "finish my business" Sahara had said.

After Sahara failed to pay the requisite Rs 5,000 crore, on April 17, the court had also decided to auction Aamby Valley. Roy's pleas to prevent the auctioning of this jewel fell on deaf ears as a three-judge bench had fixed the fair market price and instructed the Bombay High Court to "proceed with the formalities of auction by preparing the draft terms and conditions and other formalities".

Sahara, which allegedly duped its investors of Rs 24,000 crore, has been finding ways to raise money to pay the principal amount. So far, Sahara has managed to repay around Rs 16,000 crore.