Tribunal orders attachment of Mallya's property for debt recovery

The Debt Recovery Tribunal (DRT) here on Thursday ordered attachment and recovery of tycoon Vijay Mallya's properties for defaulting on bank loans by his defunct Kingfisher Airlines Ltd.

Allowing a joint petition filed in June 2013 by a consortium of 17 banks led by the State Bank of India (SBI), the Tribunal's Bengaluru bench said properties of Mallya and Kingfisher worth Rs 6,203 crore ($909 million) be recovered from them with 11.5 per cent interest per annum since July 26, 2013 over unpaid loans.

"Tribunal's Presiding Officer K. Sreenivasan directed the banks to initiate the recovery proceedings by attaching the properties of Mallya and the airline for defaulting on loans up to Rs 9,091 crore, including compound interest," a SBI counsel told reporters here.

The flamboyant 61-year-old Mallya is reported to be in Britain since he left India on March 2, 2016 after the consortium moved the Tribunal in February last year to expedite the hearing on its recovery petition.

When beleaguered Mallya did not respond to the Tribunal's earlier directives, the consortium in June 2016 sought a recovery certificate from it to sell off his properties in lieu of the defaulted loans to his airline.

SBI and state-run Punjab National Bank had declared Mallya, the airline and its holding firm UBHL (United Breweries Holdings Ltd) as "wilful defaulters" in 2015.

Besides SBI, other state-run and private banks that gave loans to Kingfisher include State Bank of Baroda, State Bank of Mysore, Axis Bank, Corporation Bank, Federal Bank, Indian Overseas Bank, Jammu and Kashmir Bank, IDBI Bank, Punjab National Bank, Punjab and Sind Bank, UCO Bank and United Bank of India.

On March 7, 2016, the Tribunal ordered British liquor major Diageo plc not to pay Mallya the $75 million (Rs 504 crore) as a severance package to quit its Indian arm United Spirits Ltd till it decided on the debt recovery case.

--IANS

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