 "Vijay Mallya")
A special court for money laundering cases on Saturday reserved its order on the Enforcement Directorate's plea seeking a warrant against liquor baron Vijay Mallya. The order will be pronounced on April 18.
The ED moved the court on Friday seeking a warrant after Mallya failed to appear before the agency despite three summons.
ED counsel Hiten Vengaonkar said, “Out of Rs 950 crore he (Mallya) had been loaned by IDBI bank, Rs 430 crore worth of properties were bought by him outside the country. The money trail has been investigated but unfortunately the properties are still to be found."
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Judge PR Bhavake of the special court heard the arguments and reserved his order for Monday. If the warrant is issued against Mallya, the Central Bureau of Investigation can ask Interpol to issue a notice for his arrest. Mallya is in the UK as banks try to recover around Rs 9,400 crore that Kingfisher Airlines owes them.
The CBI had first registered a case against Mallya on November 2015. In March, the ED registered its case against Mallya, Kingfisher Airlines and a few IDBI executives.
The directorate had issued three summons to Mallya to appear on March 18, April 2 and April 9. The summons were shown to the judge on Saturday.
“All these summons were issued under Section 50 of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act and these are deemed to be judicial. If not obeyed then an offence under Section 174 is registered against the accused,” the ED counsel told the court.
According to the ED, Mallya replied to the first summons on March 15 through an email id, vijayMallya@ubgroup.com. In his reply he said, “I had already planned my departure on March 2 before I came to India in February. I am available to reply to all your queries via email or phone.” The directorate told the court that according to Mallya, he had to be in Europe but he had not revealed his purpose. Mallya also said he wanted to appear on May 31.
The ED counsel said Mallya had used the same tactics during an earlier FERA investigation.
India on Friday suspended Mallya’s diplomatic passport for four weeks. It asked Mallya to respond within a week why his passport should not be revoked. Mallya is said to be in the United Kingdom even as banks are trying to recover around Rs 9,400 crore that his Kingfisher Airlines owes them.
