Even after Sahara group founder Subrata Roy resurfaced in a televised video Friday, three months after he vanished from public eye, what continues to remain a mystery is the reason for his hibernation.

Even doctors attending on Roy are unable to give an answer to this question that continues to be asked even after the Sahara chief sought to explain the reason for being away from public eye and not meeting anyone.

"The Sahara chairman was being treated for sharp fluctuations in blood pressure. That's all," maintained Ambrish Mithal, a leading endocrinologist at New Delhi's Apollo Hospital, who has been looking after Roy.

"He has no other physical disease and is in good health," said Mithal, adding blood pressure surges were not good enough reason for him to go underground in the manner that the business tycoon did over the past four to five months.

In the recorded video clip shown by several channels, the founder and managing worker of the Rs.500-billion ($10.87 billion) Sahara group - who turned 58 Friday - said he was now among the one percent Indians who were disease-free.

"Some petty-minded people have been spreading all kinds of rumours about me," said Roy, who was seen speaking from two locations - one showing him seated on a chair with a white shirt and a black waistcoat and the other in which he was also featured in a black trouser.

"While I have urged the central government to enact a law to punish rumour- mongers, I would also ask you all to teach them a lesson of their life," said Roy in the second clip, addressing employees of his group.

Looking slightly thinner, Roy - who has founded a group with interests that span para-banking and aviation to broadcasting and real estate - also sought to explain why he was missing from action.

"I was trying to utilise these months to recuperate and revitalise my energies so that I could live a healthy life for the next 20-25 years," he said.

"I chose not to meet anyone because I do not like to discriminate between people wanting to see me. I could not have allowed a close friend and denied audience to others," he said.

Known for throwing lavish parties and his proximity to film actors, politicians and sports personalities alike, the flamboyant Roy's absence from the circuit gave rise to rumours about his health and well-being.

This had even led to a habeas corpus petition in the Allahabad High Court, claiming some family members and officials had kept Roy in detention to siphon off his money. The petition was summarily dismissed last month.

During an interview he gave to two leading dailies published Friday, he even produced a medical certificate that reportedly declares him to be free of any disease.

"I have got an HIV test done and I do not have AIDS," the newspapers quoted the tycoon as saying.

In the interview, Roy spoke about a range of issues - from his association with Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Mulayam Singh Yadav, businessman-turned-politician Amar Singh and the Ambani family to his own succession plans for the group.

Roy, whose photos doing a workout, practising yoga and playing cricket were published by the two papers, also dismissed talk that a proposed succession plan would see his two sons, Sushanto and Seemanto, taking over the group.

Evidently, Roy's decision to come out of hibernation and speak to select media and address employees and the general public was the outcome of the questions raised about him and his group in the media.

"I had been advising him to stop leading the life of a recluse and to bring an end to the rumour-mongering by coming out in the open and telling the world that there was nothing wrong with him," a doctor attending on him claimed. 

"I am happy that he eventually accepted my advice," said the doctor, adding Roy had remained totally confined, first in his private quarters in Amby Valley near Mumbai, then in his sprawling 150-acre heavily guarded Sahara Shahar in Lucknow.

Roy was not accessible even to leading star Amitabh Bachchan, regarded among his closest chums, the doctor said. Directors of his company who visited Lucknow for group firms' board meetings were also denied an audience with him.

But Friday, he was singing a different tune and even spoke of his dream. "Today, our prime duty is that through our collective efforts, we should endeavour to make the country progress from a developing to a developed nation."