SC orders auction of Sahara’s Aamby Valley

The Supreme Court on Monday gave its go ahead to the official liquidator (OL) of the Bombay High Court to carry out the auction of the Sahara Group’s luxurious Aamby Valley project near Pune. The court has designated the registrar general of the HC as its Supreme Court appointee, who “shall remain personally present to oversee the physical auction at the auction venue in Mumbai”. The bench led by Chief Justice Dipak Misra rejected the plea to grant the company two more months to pay and said that it would not allow the group any more time to pay up its dues. The bench said, “We have had enough. The time has come to close this. Your client is not in a position to pay. He has also suffered enough. It is time to attach assets and recover dues.” The court held that grant of further time to Sahara and entertaining post-dated cheques “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 court flayed Sahara chairman Subrata Roy for testing patience of the court and criticised him for making “hyperbolic arguments and rhetoric statements”. “The grant of time, without any steps taken by the court, would tantamount to giving indulgence. Indulgence has the propensity to give rise to procrastination which is the murderer of justice,” it noted in its order.