The Supreme Court today said it has waited “sufficiently long enough” and the contempt case against fugitive businessman Vijay Mallya has to end at some point. The Indian government has been trying to extradite the businessman from the United Kingdom.
Vijay Mallya was held guilty of contempt of court in 2017 for failing to disclose transfer of 40 million USD to his children’s accounts and for ignoring summons to appear in court. The Supreme Court had in August last year dismissed his review petition in the case.
The court today set January 22 for final hearing on quantum of sentence in the matter.
“We have waited sufficiently long enough. This has to see the light of day at some point (referring to the multiple adjournments in this case since 2017). We will list the case in January 2022. At that juncture if he (Vijay Mallya) wants to take part then he will take part through extradition proceedings. Otherwise his lawyer will be here,” the court said today.
The Ministry of External Affairs informed the top court that Vijay Mallya’s extradition proceedings have achieved finality. The businessman is wanted in India in a bank loan default case of over Rs 9,000 crore involving his defunct Kingfisher Airlines.
The fugitive businessman has exhausted all avenues of appeal in the UK, said the Ministry.
“But certain proceedings which are confidential and whose details are not being disclosed are still going on,” it said.
The 2017 verdict had come on a plea by a consortium of creditors led by State Bank of India (SBI) which argued that Vijay Mallya had disobeyed court orders by making “vague and unclear disclosure of his assets” by transferring a $40 million payment from Diageo Plc. to his children and by ignoring summons to appear in court.
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