SC reserves order in Mallya's plea seeking review of 2017 order holding him guilty of contempt

New Delhi, Aug 27 The Supreme Court on Thursday reserved its order on a plea filed by fugitive businessman Vijay Mallya seeking a review of its May 2017 order holding him guilty of contempt for transferring USD 40 million to his children in violation of the court's order.

A bench of Justice UU Lalit and Justice Ashok Bhushan reserved the order after hearing both the parties in the case.

It further said that there were two allegations against Mallya, failure to disclose his assests and siphoning off money.

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

The Supreme Court had issued its May 9, 2017, order on a plea by a consortium of banks led by the State Bank of India (SBI), claiming he had allegedly transferred USD 40 million received from British firm Diageo to his children in "flagrant violation" of various judicial orders.

Earlier, the apex court had asked Mallya about the "truthfulness" of his disclosure of assets and the transfer of money to his children.

At that time, the top court 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 to the banks respectively.

The banks had then accused Mallya of concealing 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.

( With inputs from ANI )