Vijay Mallya contempt case to be dealt with finally on Jan 18: Supreme Court
The Supreme Court on Tuesday said that the case involving fugitive businessman Vijay Mallya will be dealt with finally on January 18 next year.
Mallya owes over ₹9,000 crore in form of unpaid loans towards consortium of banks led by State Bank of India (SBI).
“What we wish to do is, we will list this matter for disposal in second week of January because we have waited sufficiently long enough, we can’t be waiting any longer now. It has to see the light of the day at some stage or the other and the process must also get over,” the bench headed by Justice UU Lalit said. It noted that Mallya was held guilty of contempt in 2017.
He was found guilty by the apex court of transferring $40 million received from Diageo into the accounts of his children. The petition was filed by SBI for not disclosing the bank accounts into which $40 million was transferred. The court found him guilty of siphoning off this amount which otherwise had to be deposited with the banks.
Mallya’s review petition was dismissed by the Supreme Court in August last year.
He was directed to be personally present before the Supreme Court for announcement on quantum of sentence. But he couldn’t be present because of the legal proceedings going on in the United Kingdom where the fugitive businessman is residing.
The Supreme Court bench, also comprising justices S R Bhat and Bela M Trivedi, said it will list the matter in January for disposal and at that juncture, if Mallya want to take part personally, he will be here through the extradition proceedings and in case he is not, the bench will hear the submissions of his lawyer.
On January 18 this year, the Centre told the top court that the government is making all efforts to extradite Mallya from the United Kingdom but the process is being delayed due to some legal issues involved in the matter.
Mallya is in the UK since March 2016. He is on bail on an extradition warrant executed three years ago by Scotland Yard on April 18, 2017.