Fri. Mar 29th, 2024
Vijay Mallya

A team of 13 state-owned public sector banks under State Bank of India (SBI) guidance has approached again the UK high court to seek a bankruptcy order over around 1.145 billion pounds (approx Rs. 22000 crores) non-payment debt of ex-billionaire liquor tycoon Vijay Mallya.

JusticeMichael Briggs is hearing the bankruptcy petition filed by the consortium of banks back in 2018 in insolvency division of the court in London this week.

Other UK High Court ruling earlier had refused to give a worldwide order freezing Mallya’s assets. The court also had rejected to upheld an Indian court’s ruling that the consortium of 13 Indian banks were entitled to recover funds amounting to nearly 1.145 billion pounds (approx Rs. 22000 crores).

After getting no relief from UK court in 2018, the public sector banks launched collective efforts to file a bankruptcy petition and recover dues by seizing UK-based Mallya’s assets.

‘The petition for bankruptcy should be dismissed because the banks are pursuing the same debt through the Indian courts on a diametrically opposite basis’, said Mallya’s lawyer Philip Marshall in written submissions in the court. He added that at the very least, the hearing should be adjourned until the determination of Mallya’s appeal against the extradition order against him.

Vijay Mallya was arrested in London in April 2017 after 17 banks accused him of defaulting and non-payment of debt around $1.3 billion (approx. Rs. 9000 crores) accumulated by his venture Kingfisher Airlines and has been fighting his extradition in the UK courts since then. Kingfisher Airlines was shut down in 2012.

Mallya has lived in London for around 20 years and owns a number of assets like a townhouse in London’s Regent’s Park thought to be worth more than 30 million pounds, a 13 million-pound mansion in Hertfordshire, three yachts and shares in Force India Formula One Team Ltd and many others. This was the reason the group of Indian PSBs has brought the bankruptcy petition in the UK.

The other banks besides SBI in the group of 13 Indian banks in this fight of seeking bankruptcy order against tycoon Mallya include Bank of Baroda, Corporation bank, Federal Bank Ltd, IDBI Bank, Indian Overseas Bank, Jammu & Kashmir Bank, Punjab & Sind Bank, State Bank of Mysore, Punjab National Bank, UCO Bank, United Bank of India and JM Financial Asset Reconstruction Co. Pvt Ltd.

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