UK court orders Mallya to pay Rs 1.83 crore towards legal cost incurred by banks
The UK High Court has ordered former liquor baron Vijay Mallya to pay a minimum of 200,000 pounds towards the costs incurred by 13 Indian banks in their legal battle to recover alleged dues.
Last month, Judge Andrew Henshaw had refused to overturn a worldwide order freezing Mallya's assets and upheld an Indian court's ruling that a consortium of 13 Indian banks led by State Bank of India (SBI) were entitled to recover funds amounting to nearly 1.145 billion pounds.
As part of the judgment, the court has also ordered Mallya, 62, to pay costs towards registration of the worldwide freezing order and of the Debt Recovery Tribunal of Karnataka's judgment in Britain.
"The court ordered that Mallya pay the banks' costs. The standard order is that the court will assess those costs unless the parties can otherwise agree a figure for what should be paid," said a legal expert familiar with the case.
The court's assessment of costs is a separate process, which ends with another court hearing before a specialist costs judge in the UK. But in the meantime, Mr Mallya must pay 200,000 pounds towards this legal costs liability.
In a high court ruling dated May 8, Judge Henshaw had refused to overturn a worldwide order freezing Mr Mallya's assets and upheld an Indian court's ruling that the consortium of 13 Indian banks - State Bank of India, Bank of Baroda, Corporation bank, Federal Bank Ltd, IDBI Bank, Indian Overseas Bank, Jammu and Kashmir Bank, Punjab and Sind Bank, Punjab National Bank, State Bank of Mysore, UCO Bank, United Bank of India and JM Financial Asset Reconstruction Co. Pvt Ltd - were entitled to recover funds amounting to nearly 1.145 billion pounds
The legal costs owed to the banks emerged in a subsequent court order by the same judge.
"The First Defendant's (Mallya) application for permission to appeal is refused. Any further application for permission to appeal should be made to the Court of Appeal to be dealt with by a judge of that court," the judgment notes.
Mallya, who is separately also fighting extradition to India on fraud and money laundering charges worth an estimated Rs 9,000 crores, has since filed an appeal notice at the Court of Appeal, which includes an application for permission to appeal.
Permission
will
only
be
granted
if
the
court
considers
that
the
appeal
would
have
a
real
prospect
of
success
or
there
is
some
other
compelling
reason
for
the
appeal
to
be
heard.
Mallya
is
due
back
at
Westminster
Magistrates' Court
in
London
next
month
for
one
of
the
final
hearings
in
his
extradition
case.
A hearing for closing arguments to be presented by his defence team and the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS), on behalf of the Indian authorities, was scheduled for July 11 but is now likely to take place on July 31.
The former Kingfisher Airlines boss remains on bail since his arrest on an extradition warrant in April last year. The CPS believes it has successfully established a prima facie case of fraud against the businessman and that there are no bars to his extradition to face the courts in India.
Mallya's lawyers have claimed the criminal charges against their client are "without substance" and "politically motivated". They have also challenged the case on human rights grounds, questioning the conditions at Arthur Road Jail in Mumbai, where the businessman is to be held post-extradition.