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ED to move HC against appellate tribunal order in Mallya case
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SME Times News Bureau | 20 Aug, 2020
The Enforcement Directorate (ED) will appeal in the Delhi High Court
against an appellate tribunal's order to release flats attached as part
of an ED probe against fugitive liquor baron Vijay Mallya and
Karnataka-based UBHL, the agency said on Sunday.
The Prevention
of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) Appellate Tribunal in Delhi on Saturday
ordered the release of flats owned by NRI Vivek Mathias and Biocon CMD
Kiran Mazumdar Shaw in Kingfisher Towers, a housing project of Mallya in
Bengaluru.
"The ED will soon appeal against the tribunal order
regarding attachment of United Breweries Holding Limited (UBHL) assets
in (about Rs 9,000 crore) bank fraud case against Kingfisher Airlines
Ltd (now defunct) and its owner Vijay Mallya," an ED statement said.
The ED said "it had attached UBHL's properties after proper verification".
During
investigation before the attachment, the ED clarified, UBHL had stated,
with respect to the flats at Kingfisher Towers, that "no sale deed was
executed nor registered" with the registrar of properties.
"Thus,
all the properties vest with UBHL. Accordingly, the same was attached
provisionally and the adjudicating authority went through the evidences
and confirmed provisional attachments," said the statement.
The
ED said that Kingfisher Airlines was a 100 per cent subsidiary of UBHL
which had given corporate guarantee on behalf of the airline for
obtaining loan.
"Investigations also revealed that substantial
portions of loans obtained by Kingfisher Airlines was siphoned overseas
under various pretexts. Therefore, UBHL being a corporate guarantor, its
properties were attached under PMLA which allows for such attachments
on the basis of value equivalent if proceeds of crime are not
available," the statement added.
The ED in 2016 registered an
FIR against Mallya -- currently holed up in the United Kingdom -- UBHL
and others under the PMLA. Consequently, the agency attached some
properties belonging to Mallya and UBHL, including under-construction
flats in Kingfisher Towers.
Mathias -- a Monaco-based
businessman -- and Shaw, who heads one of the Bengaluru-based premier
biopharmaceutical companies, had purchased some flats in the Kingfisher
Towers, way back in 2012.
After ED seized their flats, they had approached the appellate tribunal seeking release of their flats.
The
ED, however, had alleged before the tribunal that certain persons,
including Mathias and Shaw, who were friends of Mallya, had helped him
in money laundering by purchasing the flats.
But the tribunal on
Saturday pulled up the ED for not complying with its statutory duties,
slamming it for its failure in establishing any collusion of Mathias and
Shaw with Mallya, and any evidence on record to show money laundering
in the purchase of the flats.
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