Supreme Court sentences 4 months in jail and an Rs.2000 fine in contempt of court to Vijay Mallya.
The fine is to be submitted within 4 weeks to the Supreme Court; if the fine is not deposited, then a further sentence of 2 months will be declared by the Supreme Court.
The fugitive Businessman Vijay Mallya is living in the UK for many years now. He owns 17 Indian Banks and around Rs.9000 crore, and is charged with fraud and money laundering in the country.
Vijay Mallya had transferred 40 million dollars to his children in the US. In 2016 the Karnataka High Court banned Mallya from transferring money to any third party without clearing the existing dues.
According to the court’s documents Mallya received 40 million dollars in his Swiss bank account on February 25, 2016, from Diageo Plc, a company of Vijay Mallya. On the very next day, Mallya transferred an amount of 13 million dollars each to his son Siddharth and daughters Tanya and Leanna. The money was transferred from Mallya’s Swiss bank accounts to three separate trusts whose sole beneficiaries were each of his three children.
The leftover amount of almost 1 million dollars was moved on February 29 through the same channels and split equally among Siddharth, Leanna, and Tanya Mallya. Mallya’s children are American Citizens only.
This transaction of money, according to SBI’s petition, amounted to disregarding the high court’s orders and amounted to contempt.
According to the SC’s rules, any person charged with contempt has to appear in person before the court. Mallya did not appear in court instead he filed a petition to withdraw the contempt notice. Vijay Mallya was given a “last chance” by the Supreme Court in February to appear before it in person, but Mallya had failed to do so.
The Supreme Court’s sentencing of Mallya on Monday was also based on “disobeying the orders passed by this court in not disclosing full particulars of the assets as was directed.”
Mallya had dismissed these claims and had contended that the details submitted by him were intended to arrive at a “meaningful settlement” with banks. The court found no merit in his counterarguments.