Sahara chief Subrata Roy tells SC unable to pay Rs. 36,000 cr, what now - Sahara Group boss Subrata Roy who has been lodged in jail for the last 16 months for disobeying Supreme Court's order, has expressed inability to pay up saying that it is impossible for any firm to shell out Rs 36,000 crore in 18 months.

Roy's lawyer Kapil Sibal said, "No one in the world can pay Rs 36,000 crore in one-and-half years."

Under a Supreme Court order on 31 August 2012, the Sahara Group had to repay Rs 24,000-and-odd crore to investors of two group companies in three months.

If time is calculated from the date of the Sebi order of June 2011 asking Sahara to pay up, the group nearly had five-and-a-half years to meet the terms. The Rs 24,000 originally demanded from Sahara has blown up to over Rs 36,000 crore today due to adding interest.

Under the terms of bail set for the release of Subrata Roy, he has to pay up Rs 5,000 crore in cash and provide a bank guarantee of Rs 5,000 crore. The rest of the money has to be refunded in 18 months - which is being opposed by Roy's lawyer.

An interesting sale option was talked about in the court hearing yesterday on 7 July. One party wanted to purchase one of Roy's properties for Rs 64 crore, however another party was ready to offer Rs 110 crore - which forced the court to wonder if the property should be auctioned. The Sahara counsel was against the idea.

The Supreme Court's best option is to end the Sahara sham and appoint an official liquidator for the group to recover the payments.