The Bombay High Court has asked the State Bank of India (SBI) and the Enforcement Directorate (ED) to confirm whether fugitive businessman Vijay Mallya’s debts and liabilities have been cleared using his movable properties, which were attached by ED.
Mallya’s counsel claimed in court that the debts have been cleared using the money recovered from his assets attached by the ED. Justice Milind Jadhav passed the direction and asked SBI to confirm the same.
The case is related to the bank loans granted to defunct Kingfisher Airlines. Mallya is accused of money laundering and siphoning off at least ₹3,500 crore out of the total ₹9,000 crore bank loans granted to his defunct Kingfisher Airlines.
The case was investigated by ED and ED initiated proceedings under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) and provisionally attached his properties in 2016. In 2019, a special court permitted SBI and other banks to utilise Mallya’s ED-attached movable properties for debt recovery.
Mallya challenged this before the High Court in 2020. Senior Advocate Amit Desai, appearing for Mallya, submitted that the 2020 petition has effectively become redundant following subsequent developments. He argued that ED has since recovered money from said assets for settling the loans.
However, Justice Milind Jadhav emphasised that it must first verify these claims directly with the statutory enforcement authorities before determining any further course of action. The plea is likely to be heard next on September 9.
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