The Supreme Court reserved its order on the 2017 contempt of court case against fugitive businessman Vijay Mallya on Thursday. He had filed a review plea on the court order by which he was held guilty of contempt of court for transferring $40 million to his children recieved from British firm Diageo.
Mallya is the prime accused in a bank default case of over Rs 9000 crore involving his defunct Kingfisher airlines and has been in the UK since 2016. The banks had alleged that he had concealed the transaction from Diageo and diverted the money. Karnataka High Court found that he had done ‘flagrant violation’ of court orders by transferring the money to his children instead of depositing it with the banks where he was declared defaulter.
A bench comprising of justice UU Lalit and Ashok Bhushan reserved the order of the High Court after hearing the arguements in the review plea.
The apex court had in June directed its registry to explain as to why Mallya’s review petition had not been listed before the court concerned for the last three years. It had directed the registry to furnish all details including names of officials who had dealt with the file concerning the review petition in the last three years.
