The Sahara Group has promised to pay Rs 20,000 crore in tranches by March 31, 2015 to market regulator Securities and Exchange Board Of India, which can use the money to repay the group’s bond holders. The fresh proposal shortens the repayment time by a few months and increases the amount from Rs 17,000 crore under an earlier offer that was rejected by the court as unattractive.

Having said this, The Sahara Group even submitted a fresh proposal in the Supreme Court to repay its bond investors, while pleading for the release of Subrata Roy, the Group Chief who has been held in Delhi’s Tihar jail since March 04, 2014.

Subrata Roy’s lawyer, Ram Jethmalani and CA Sundaram also kept up their opposition to the continued detention of Subrata Roy and two directors of the group in Tihar, terming it a violation of fundamental rights.

Ram Jethmalani pleaded with a bench of Justices K.S. Radhakrishnan and J.S. Khehar to grant Subrata Roy’s bail.

Under the new proposal, The Sahara Group would pay Rs 2,500 crore within three days of the court lifting a freeze on its accounts, followed by three tranches of Rs 3,500 crore every three months and the last installment of Rs 7,000 crore by March 31, 2015.

It has also promised to give bank guarantees for the payment. In 2012, the Supreme Court asked The Sahara Group to repay its bond investors through Securities and Exchange Board Of India, accepting the market regulator’s view that the group had violated the country’s securities laws in the sale of the financial instrument. Sahara said it has already paid most of the investors, a claim that Securities and Exchange Board Of India doesn’t agree with.

The court ordered the arrest of Subrata Roy and the two directors after The Sahara Group failed to comply with its order to submit the funds with Securities and Exchange Board Of India.

The Sahara Group, continues to claim that it has repaid ninety three percent of investors, and says only about two thousand odd investors were left to be paid.