London:
Liquor tycoon Vijay Mallya was on Wednesday denied permission to appeal against a UK High Court order refusing to dismiss bankruptcy proceedings brought by a consortium of Indian banks led by the State Bank of India (SBI), in their pursuit of debt connected to his now-defunct Kingfisher Airlines.
The 65-year-old businessman, who remains on bail in the UK, had filed a renewed application to appeal against UK court orders in the case from final year, which had permitted for an adjournment of bankruptcy proceedings till the debt challenge just before the Supreme Court in India was decided upon.
His counsel, Philip Marshall, argued that the banks’ bankruptcy petition ought to be dismissed rather than just adjourned as the debt in query was disputed and becoming deliberated upon in the Indian courts.
“While this was a new point [before the appellate court], I do not accept it as a reasonable ground for appeal as the matter can be dealt with during proceedings that are still continuing,” stated Justice Colin Birss, through a remote hearing of the Chancery Appeals Division of the High Court in London.
Mallya’s barrister also raised the challenge of “abuse of process” by the banks in their alleged non-disclosure of securities held in India and the existence of third-party safety in the type of assets connected to United Breweries Holdings.
The judge reiterated that he had dismissed each these as adequate grounds of appeal in a ruling he handed down “on paper” in December final year.
“There is no prospect of success of an appeal based on this ground, although this does not preclude reliance on it [third-party security] later,” the judge ruled.
The hearing types component of a series becoming heard by the High Court due to the fact the SBI-led consortium of 13 Indian banks had initiated the proceedings against Mallya in December 2018 as component of their efforts to recoup about 1.145 billion pounds in unpaid loans.
Both sides have deposed retired Supreme Court justices as specialist witnesses on Indian law in help of their arguments for and against a bankruptcy order against Mallya in the UK.
While the banks argue a ideal to waive their safety more than the Indian assets involved in the case in order to recover their debt in the UK, lawyers for Mallya argue that the funds in query involved public cash held by state-owned banks in India which precluded them from such a safety waiver.
The next hearing to conclude closing submissions in the case is scheduled to be heard at a but-to-be-agreed date in the coming weeks.
In parallel, Mallya’s lawyers have also been applying to the court in order for him to meet his considerable and mounting legal fees from monies held with the Court Funds Office (CFO) as component of the bankruptcy proceedings.
In the final hearing connected to fees on Monday, Judge Sebastian Prentis at the Insolvency and Companies Court (ICC) division of the High Court had agreed only to let adequate funds to cover the hearing on Wednesday.
The challenge of funds held by the court will now be completely dealt with at a hearing listed just before the High Court on January 22, through which it will be decided regardless of whether to sanction sums towards living costs and legal costs from the sale of a French luxury home Le Grand Jardin final year.
Meanwhile, the separate proceedings connected to the former Kingfisher Airlines chief becoming extradited to India to face charges of fraud and cash laundering stay held up by a “confidential” legal matter.