Vijay Mallya New Delhi/UNI: The Supreme Court on Thursday reserved its order on the quantum of sentence in a contempt case against fugitive businessman Vijay Mallya, found guilty of contempt for not disclosing full particulars of assets in a case between the SBI and the now-defunct Kingfisher Airlines.
A three-judge bench headed by Justice UU Lalit and also comprising Justices S. Ravindra Bhat and P. S. Narasimha heard the amicus curiae, Jaideep Gupta. Gupta submitted that the court had given several chances to appear before the court but he did not turn up.
It was alleged that Mallya owed the banks some Rs 9,000 crores. He had transferred an amount of $40 million to his children and was held guilty of disobeying the orders passed by the court and not disclosing his assets and not replying to the contempt petition as well as not appearing before the court.
Justice Lalit observed: "We have been told by the government that something is pending, what is pending we don't know, when will it get over we don't know, in which court is it pending we don't know. So, it is like a dead wall."
The court observed that Vijay Mallya was not in custody in the UK. While considering the punishment for the contempt, the amicus submitted is that while giving the punishment the difficulty that the court would face would be the presence of the contemnor.
The amicus went on to submit that attachment of property would be a way by which the contemnor may be punished or both the ways punishment as well as sequestration can be used.
The bench then raised the question that can the assets be retrieved as the assets in India are already attached in other cases and the foreign assets were transferred to his family members by way of gratuitous transfers so can that transaction be reversed and money is received.
The apex court had previously passed an order and given him a final opportunity on the advice of senior advocate Gupta who was present before the court in the capacity of amicus curiae.
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