Sebi lawyer says made no 'misleading statement' on Sahara case

Senior advocate Arvind Datar, counsel for market regulator Sebi in the high-profile Sahara dispute, today asserted he has not said anything "misleading or untrue", after the embattled group accused him of making a "mischievous statement" about the case.

Seeking to clear the air about his comments made during a lecture on 'Sebi-Sahara case', Datar said, "The lecture did not contain a single misleading or untrue statement and I had taken personal care to ensure that no such comment is made." During the lecture on Friday, Datar had said the Supreme Court had asked Sahara Group chief Subrata Roy not to leave the country when the issue related to a Mumbai property came up during one of the hearings.

"Before the Supreme Court asked him (Roy) to appear, he filed an application to say that he wanted to leave India...He said he wanted to leave India to meet Bill Clinton and Tony Blair for business discussion. It is on record," Datar said.

The Court later asked Roy to appear before it and thereafter, he filed an affidavit, saying his mother was very serious and he can't leave Lucknow, Datar had said.

Noting that Roy did not turn up despite Court order, Datar had said, "the most foolish thing you can do is violate an order of the Supreme Court" as he talked about the apex court proceedings that saw Sahara chief being sent to jail.

Reacting to media reports based on Datar's lecture, Sahara's Counsel Gautam Awasthi today issued a statement objecting to "misleading statements made by Datar in public and media".

"His statement in media tends to mislead by creating an impression as if 'Saharasri' Subrata Roy Sahara wanted to go abroad before incarceration," Awasthi said.

In response, Datar in a hand-written statement said, "I've not issued any statement to the media. I delivered a lecture at Vidhi Centre on the Sahara case for 30 minutes followed by a Q&A session." "Unfortunately, the headlines in some of the newspapers are highly misleading and give a completely wrong impression. I have made no statement about Shri Sahara wanting to (go) abroad before he was incarcerated," Datar said as he assured the Sahara counsel that no wrong statement was made by him.

He said that the lecture was attended by almost 100 persons, most of whom were students and young lawyers, and he did not issue any statement to the media about Sahara case.