[ By Bobby Anthony ]The Supreme Court has asked the Karnataka High Court to wrap up hearing appeals filed by United Breweries Holdings Ltd (UBHL) and absconding fugitive willful defaulter Vijay Mallya within six months.The development has come after Mallya, through senior advocate Fali S Nariman pleaded before the Supreme Court for a quick hearing of the cases in the Karnataka High...
The Supreme Court has asked the Karnataka High Court to wrap up hearing appeals filed by United Breweries Holdings Ltd (UBHL) and absconding fugitive willful defaulter Vijay Mallya within six months.
The development has come after Mallya, through senior advocate Fali S Nariman pleaded before the Supreme Court for a quick hearing of the cases in the Karnataka High Court.
In response to this, a three-judge Supreme Court bench, led by Chief Justice of India S A Bobde, has asked the Karnataka High Court to quickly dispose of the appeals within six months.
Earlier, Mallya, the former chairman of the now defunct Kingfisher Airlines had approached the Karnataka High Court and filed appeals against a lower court’s order directing UBHL to be wound up to pay off Kingfisher’s dues, since UBHL was the guarantor of loans to Kingfisher Airlines.
In February 2017, the Karnataka High Court ordered that UBHL should be wound up and its assets used to pay off Kingfisher’s debts after which UBHL and Mallya appealed against that Karnataka High Court order to a division bench of that court.
They had also sought a stay on the liquidation of assets until a final adjudication on the issue and the matter has been before the Karnataka High Court ever since.
After the latest Supreme Court order, the Karnataka High Court is also expected to take a call on other applications filed by Mallya calling for a judicial committee to oversee sale of assets estimated at over Rs 13,000 crore, to pay off his dues to Indian banks. Mallya owes more than Rs 9,000 crore to various nationalized banks, out of which only Rs 2,000 crore has been recovered so far.
Later, Mallya fled to London from where he keeps issuing denials about having any criminal intent to default on loans extended to his defunct Kingfisher Airlines.
It may be recalled that the Indian government has filed for Mallya’s extradition as a “proclaimed offender” and the banks led by SBI have initiated bankruptcy proceedings against him in a London court.
Mallya has opposed all legal proceedings against him both in India as well as the United Kingdom. He has lost the first round of extradition proceedings, but has appealed against it.