India's Sahara conglomerate chief Subrata Roy dies

FILE PHOTO: Sahara Group Chairman Subrata Roy gestures as he speaks during a news conference in Kolkata

(Reuters) - Embattled Sahara conglomerate chief Subrata Roy died on Tuesday due to cardiorespiratory arrest, the company said in a statement.

Roy was admitted to a hospital in Mumbai on Sunday and died following complications arising from metastatic malignancy, hypertension and diabetes, according to the company.

Sahara, once the sponsor of India's national cricket team, had been embroiled in a battle with market regulator SEBI over repaying billions of dollars to investors who put their money in a bond scheme that was later ruled to be illegal.

Roy, the founder and chairman of Sahara, was arrested in March 2014 for failing to attend a contempt of court hearing and was on bail since 2016. He had denied any wrongdoing.

Sahara's assets at one point of time included New York's Plaza Hotel and the Grosvenor House in London. Roy was also co-owner of the former Force India Formula One team.

Sahara and Roy had been in the spotlight in 2020 after they got a district court to stall the release of Netflix's series "Bad Boy Billionaires" featuring Roy, among others, claiming it would damage his reputation.

Netflix later released the show after the court lifted its injunction.

(Reporting by Gursimran Kaur and Maria Ponnezhath in Bengaluru; Editing by Shounak Dasgupta)