The Supreme Court said today that it has waited "long enough" and that the contempt case against fugitive businessman Vijay Mallya needs to end at some point. The Indian government has been attempting to extradite Mallya from the United Kingdom.
In 2017, Vijay Mallya was found guilty of contempt of court for failing to disclose a $40 million transfer to his children's accounts and he failed to bey a subpoena.
In August of last year, the Supreme Court denied his petition for a rehearing in the case. The final hearing on the quantum of sentence in the case has been set for January 22.
The court said today, "We have waited sufficiently long enough. This has to see the light of day at some point (referring to the multiple adjournments in this case since 2017). We will list the case in January 2022. At that juncture if he (Vijay Mallya) wants to take part then he will take part through extradition proceedings. Otherwise his lawyer will be here."
The top court was informed by the Ministry of External Affairs that Vijay Mallya's extradition proceedings had reached a conclusion. The businessman is wanted in India in connection with a bank loan default case involving his defunct Kingfisher Airlines worth over 9,000 crore.
According to the Ministry, the fugitive businessman has exhausted all legal options in the United Kingdom.
Vijay Mallya had disobeyed court orders by making "vague and unclear disclosure of his assets" by transferring a $40 million payment from Diageo Plc. to his children and by ignoring summons to appear in court, according to a consortium of creditors led by State Bank of India (SBI).