The fugitive businessman was a member of Rajya Sabha, India’s upper house of Parliament, when he escaped to London in 2016, with the Indian law enforcement authorities on his trail.
The banks, led by the State Bank of India, hope to confiscate Mallya’s high-value offshore assets to recover part of what they are owed. The assets are owned by a trust established in the name of the liquor baron’s father, but he has claimed he had no interest in those entities.
Mallya has been maintaining that the charges against him levied by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) India’s apex investigative agency, are “false” and he “wants to pay employees and other creditors”, and “move on in life”.
Earlier this month, the flamboyant businessman, whose interests ranged from aviation to liquor, told his detractors to ask the banks why they are not ready to take back the money he owes.
India is seeking Mallya’s extradition from the UK to face a criminal trial in the country for failing to repay the bad debt that was issued to him and his defunct Kingfisher Airlines by state-funded banks. The loans are believed to have been obtained through falsely represented facts.
The UK ordered the extradition of Vijay Mallya to India in February, 2019, but he managed to obtain a reprieve from the courts and remains in London. His latest appeal in the UK High Court will now come up for hearing in February 2020.