Supreme Court Justices Adarsh Kumar Goel and Uday Umesh Lalit were on March 9 hearing a petition filed by a consortium of banks against Kingfisher Airlines and Vijay Mallya.

The court made certain directions against Mallaya with regard to his personal and company assets and also about disclosure of his personal and family assets. Mallya had not complied with the order and banks had filed contempt against him.

The court had issued notice on October 25 last year, and after hearing both the parties ordered that it was prima facie of the view that Respondent No. 3 had not made a proper disclosure in terms of the court’s order dated 07.04.2016.

Therefore, Respondent No.3 was directed by the court to make a complete disclosure of all his properties, and in particular, about the receipt of US$ 40 million. The court wanted to know as to when this amount was received, where was it deposited and how the same had been dealt with.

On March 9, the counsel submitted that Mallya was in violation of the decree of DRT as well as the injunction order of the Karnataka High Court as he had siphoned off the $40 million to his children. It was further submitted that he had created third party rights in the money that was lying with him and all other assets were already frozen to recover the income tax.

So, at present he was not aware of any way of recovering what Mallya owes to SBI, which is Rs 9,200 crore, as of January 21.

It was also emphasised that proceedings had also been initiated against Mallya in London. But he was taking the Indian judiciary for a ride by submitting false statements before courts, violating injunctions and undertakings given by him by not appearing before the Supreme Court.

Therefore, it was submitted, he should be asked to submit $40 million, and in case of default, should be held in contempt.

Mallya’s counsel submitted that assets worth Rs 8,000 crore had been attached by different agencies and Mallya didn’t have any assets as of now. He pleaded that Mallya was looking for settlement with the banks and the orders of attachment of assets were being appealed against in order to explore the possibilities of settlement.

Mallya’s counsel also submitted that no contempt petition had been filed against Mallya, and the Supreme Court, by entertaining this, was actually snatching away his right to appeal. He submitted vociferously that this case was being dealt in a different and unusual manner and Mallya was being unfairly targeted while he was willing to try his best to pay back the dues.

The counsel submitted a list of cases where the Supreme Court had declined to use its powers under Article 142 in similar cases.

—India legal Bureau