Karnataka HC backs ED seizing Mallya flat in Kingfisher Air case

In a relief for Enforcement Directorate’s (ED’s) Mumbai unit probing the alleged ₹9,200-crore bank loan-default cases involving fugitive liquor baron Vijay Mallya’s defunct - airline firm Kingfisher Airlines Limited (KAL), the Karnataka High Court has restored its attachment in June 2016 of a Bengaluru high-end flat, while investigating a case related to alleged unpaid loans worth ₹750 crore of the IDBI Bank, by holding the action as lawful.

- Abhishek Sharan

Holding ED’s attachment of the flat to be lawful in its November 14 order, the HC upheld the agency's challenge against an August 2019 order of the Appellate Tribunal (Prevention of Money Laundering Act), New Delhi, which had quashed the asset's 2016 attachment. The high court set aside the Appellate Tribunal’s 2019 order, pointing out that the flat was owned by United Breweries (Holdings) Ltd or UBHL that was then directly or indirectly controlled by Mallya, of which KAL was a fully-owned subsidiary, at the time of the attachment. The high court held that UBHL' earlier ‘Agreement To Sell’ with a local developer's firm, wherein the latter had paid around ₹18.38 crore, by September 2011, to the former in the form of booking amount and installments, was not legally tenable as it was ‘agreement’ was unregistered and so,