Disclose Mallya, kin’s assets to banks, says apex court
NEW DELHI: Details of Vijay Mallya and his family’s assets should be disclosed to banks seeking loan repayment of more than `9,000 crore from the liquor baron, the Supreme Court ordered on Tuesday.
The top court rejected Mallya’s argument that the assets weren’t acquired from the loans. “We do not find any tenable objection in disclosing the assets to the petitioners (banks),” a bench of justice Kurien Joseph and justice RF Nariman said.
Mallya’s lawyers said the industrialist — who left India on March 2 despite probes by the CBI and enforcement directorate — was unwilling to return as banks wanted to see him in jail.
They said Mallya wasn’t a willful defaulter and accused the banks and government of creating circumstances that force the 60-year-old to live abroad.
Appearing for the SBI-led consortium, attorney general Mukul Rohatgi said Mallya was a fugitive running away from justice, underlining the government’s hardening stance on the loan default. He submitted the liquor baron ran away with money that “belongs to the people of India and not a king”.
The disclosure will enable the 17-bank consortium to have a meaningful settlement of money owed by Mallya’s nowdefunct Kingfisher Airlines, the court said.
It directed the SC registry to provide a list of assets — furnished by Mallya in a sealed packet — to the consortium after Rohatgi argued the liquor baron was playing “hide and seek” with the court. Rohatgi said Mallya was “deliberately concealing” because the industrialist had no intention of returning and hinted that the government might approach British authorities.
The development came a day after the parliamentary ethics committee recommended Mallya’s expulsion from Rajya Sabha. The foreign ministry has already suspended his passport and is consulting experts on his deportation. The bench also pulled up Mallya for not honouring its April 7 order directing him to furnish asset details of his family and himself, specify an amount he will deposit and give a possible date when he can appear in court. “You have to respect our order. But you are not ready to show even a rupee of what you have,” the bench noted. But it said Mallya and family could avail legal remedies against banks.