SC adjourns Mallya's review plea as docs found missing from case file

The Supreme Court adjourned the review plea filed by fugitive baron Vijay Mallya for August 20 who had sought review of its May 2017 order holding him guilty of contempt of court for transferring money to his children in violation of the court's order. Some documents were found to be missing from the case file.

New Delhi:The Supreme Court on Thursday adjourned the review plea filed by fugitive liquor baron Vijay Mallya, as some documents were found to be missing from the case file.

The court directed Mallya's advocate to bring the documents on record by July 20.

Mallya had sought review of its May 2017 order holding him guilty of contempt of court for transferring money to his children in violation of the court's order.

The Supreme Court had earlier directed its registry to explain why the petition filed by businessman Vijay Mallya was not listed before the concerned court for last three years.

A bench of Justices U U Lalit and Ashok Bhushan, which took up Mallya's review petition in-chamber on June 16, had directed the apex court registry to furnish all the details including names of officials who had dealt with the file concerning the review petition for last three years.

"According to the record, placed before us, the review petition was not listed before the court for last three years. Before we deal with the submissions raised in the review petition, we direct the registry to explain why the review petition was not listed before the concerned court for last three years," the bench said in its June 16 order which was uploaded on the apex court website on Friday.

Taking strong note of the undue delay in listing of the review petition, the bench had asked the registry to furnish explanation within two weeks.

"The review petition shall, thereafter, be considered on merits," the bench had said in its order, adding, "As per office report on limitation the review petition was filed in time."

READ:SC seeks explanation from registry on why Mallya's review plea not listed for three years

Mallya, who is an accused in a bank loan default case of over Rs 9,000 crore involving his defunct Kingfisher Airlines, is presently in the United Kingdom.

The apex court had earlier asked Mallya about the truthfulness of his disclosure of assets and the transfer of money to his children.

It was dealing with pleas of lending banks seeking contempt action and a direction to Mallya to deposit USD 40 million received from offshore firm Diageo respectively.

The banks had then alleged that Mallya concealed the facts and diverted the money to his son Siddharth Mallya and daughters Leanna Mallya and Tanya Mallya in "flagrant violation" of the orders passed by the Karnataka High Court.

Prior to that, the apex court had rapped Mallya for not making full disclosure of his overseas properties and had asked him to do so within a month.

Mallya had last month lost his application seeking leave to appeal his extradition to India in the UK Supreme Court, setting a 28-day clock on his removal from the UK. Mallya has been based in the UK since March 2016 and remains on bail on an extradition warrant executed three years ago by Scotland Yard on April 18, 2017.

With agency inputs