London: Liquor Baron Vijay Mallya faced a major setback on Tuesday after he lost a lawsuit filed in London by a consortium of Indian banks seeking to collect the amount of Rs. 10,000 crore amid allegations that he committed massive fraud.
A judge ruled that the consortium of lenders, including IDBI Bank, can impose an Indian court’s decision against Mallya, who was found to have willfully defaulted on $1.4 billion in debt taken by his now-defunct airline Kingfisher.
Judge Andrew Henshaw in London also refused to overturn a worldwide freeze placed on Mallya’s assets.
Mallya’s lawyers now have the opportunity to appeal the decision to the Court of Appeals, the second highest court in the UK.
62-year-old, Mallya is facing a trail in the UK Court, to rule if he can be extradited to India to face charges for financial irregularities involving a total amount of Rs 9,000 crores, as well as money laundering cases.
In April last year, Mallya was arrested by Scotland Yard on an extradition warrant. He is out on bail on a bond worth 650,000 pounds.
Apart from this case, the High Court of London on February 12 ordered Mallya to pay an estimated USD 90 million to a Singapore-based aircraft leasing company in claims.
The case involves a number of aircraft leased by Vijay Mallya’s now-defunct Kingfisher Airlines from BOC Aviation in 2014. He, however, denied the allegations against him and claimed they are “politically motivated”.
ANI