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Supreme Court reserves orders in contempt case against Vijay Mallya
Mallya, whose dues have now swelled to over ₹9,700 crore including interest, was held guilty of contempt of court in May, 2017 and has since not appeared in court.
The Supreme Court reserved its order on punishment for fugitive economic offender Vijay Mallya, allowing his lawyer a last chance to hear back from the one-time industrialist who has refused to appear for hearings in a contempt of court case.
Mallya was ordered to return over ₹6,200 crore in dues to multiple banks and has been sued for contempt of court for failing to disclose a payment $40 million from British spirit maker Diageo, which he is said to have transferred to his family members at a time when the court had ordered him not to “alienate any of his assets”.
Mallya, whose dues have now swelled to over ₹9,700 crore including interest, was held guilty of contempt of court in May, 2017 and has since not appeared in court.
Advocate Ankur Saigal, who has represented Mallya in the past, appeared virtually before the bench on Thursday and presented a communication of January 17 received from Mallya in which he informed the lawyer about secret proceedings with the UK government against a 2019 order by a London court to extradite him.
The bench of justices UU Lalit, S Ravindra Bhat and PS Narasimha said, “If he has sent a communication as of January 2022, he is certainly aware of these proceedings. In today’s world, through the virtual platform, you can exchange pleadings and documents. We cannot help if the person concerned does not wish to respond.”
The judges then allowed Saigal to file any written submissions by Tuesday.
Saigal informed the Court that on merits, he had no instructions to make any arguments.
For the Centre, advocate Rajat Nair said that the Court must award the maximum possible sentence to Mallya. “By his wilful non-participation, the contempt against him has aggravated. Adequate sentence must be given so that an example can be set in such cases,” he said.
Amicus Jaideep Gupta told the Court that while the contempt facing Mallya was of civil nature, the court can direct the attachment of his assets equal to the amount that was transferred in violation of the court’s order. But the judges said that this should be left to the banks who have already proceeded against assets of Mallya, both within and outside the country.
The contempt proceedings moved by the banks arose out of a debt recovery tribunal (DRT) proceeding where a consortium of banks demanded outstanding dues of ₹6203 crore against Mallya and his companies.
The order by the top court convicting him for contempt was passed on May 9, 2017. Against this decision, Mallya filed a review petition that was dismissed in August 2020. Since then, the matter was adjourned several times since Mallya was unavailable to the court.
