In a relief to Sahara India promoter Subrata Roy (72), the Supreme Court on Wednesday restrained Netflix from using his name in its web series, "Bad Boy Billionaires," slated for release later in the day.
Roy and his two directors were arrested for failure of the group's two companies to comply with a court order to return Rs 25,000 crore to their investors. There were allegations that political leaders of all hues had parked their black money with Sahara, which falsely showed it as contribution from thousands of non-existent investors.
Roy was sent to Tihar Jail by the apex court on March 4, 2014, and came out on parole after spending over two years in prison on May 6, 2016, to perform the last rites of his mother. He has been out of prison since then."Dismissed we are sorry," ruled a 4-judge Bench, headed by CJI Sharad Arvind Bobde, refusing to entertain the Netflix petition against a Bihar lower court's interim order restraining it from making any reference to Roy in its series.
The Bench, however, allowed Netflix to approach the Patna High Court for relief in appeal against the order passed by the lower court. Besides Subrata Roy, the others projected to be covered in the series include liquor tycoon Vijay Mallya, diamond merchant Nirav Modi and his uncle Mehul Choksi, and Ramalinga Raju, founder of Satyam Computers.Netflix says ‘Bad Boy Billionaires’, an investigative documentary, explores the greed, fraud and corruption that brought down India's most infamous tycoons. The official synopsis of the series states: "What would you do to make it to the top? To build an empire? To maintain an image? Bad Boy Billionaires answers just that. Dive into stories of India's most infamous billionaires - Vijay Mallya, Nirav Modi, Subrata Roy and Byrraju Ramalinga Raju -- as they plan, plot and manoeuvre through their rises and falls. Watch as insiders and experts discuss what made these men genius and, in some cases, the greatest conmen."
In another development, the Hyderabad city civil court, too, has granted an injunction restraining Netflix from airing its web series. The court passed this order in the case filed Ramalinga Raju of Satyam Computers challenging the release on the ground that it would invade his privacy in an unlawful manner.
Last Friday, the Delhi High Court dismissed a plea by Mehul Choksi, an accused in the nearly Rs 13,500-crore PNB scam, to conduct pre-screening of the series, telling his counsel that the remedy lies in a civil suit. Choksi, the promoter of Gitanjali Gems, who fled India with his nephew Nirav Modi, last year secured the citizenship of Antigua & Barbuda.
