Vijay Mallya loses bankruptcy petition amendment High Court battle in U.K.

A consortium of Indian banks led by the State Bank of India (SBI) on Tuesday moved a step nearer in their try to get well debt from loans paid out to Vijay Mallya’s now-defunct Kingfisher Airlines after the High Court in London upheld an software to amend their bankruptcy petition, in favour of waiving their safety over the businessman’s belongings in India.

Chief Insolvencies and Companies Court (ICC) Judge Michael Briggs handed down his judgment in favour of the banks to declare there isn’t a public coverage that forestalls a waiver of safety rights, as argued by Mallya’s legal professionals.

Also learn: U.K. has mentioned it can not extradite Vijay Mallya, Centre informs Supreme Court

At a digital listening to, July 26 was set because the date for remaining arguments for and towards granting a bankruptcy order towards Mallya after the banks accused him of attempting to “kick matters into the long grass” and known as on the “bankruptcy petition to be brought to its inevitable end”.

“I order that permission be given to amend the petition to read as follows: ‘The Petitioners (banks) having the right to enforce any security held are willing, in the event of a bankruptcy order being made, to give up any such security for the benefit of all the bankrupt’s creditors’,” Justice Briggs’ judgment reads.

“There is nothing in the statutory provisions that prevent the Petitioners from giving up security,” he notes.

Mallya’s barrister, Philip Marshall, had referenced witness statements of retired Indian judges in earlier hearings to reiterate that there’s “public interest under Indian law” by advantage of the banks being nationalised.

However, Justice Briggs discovered no obstacle to the collectors relinquishing their safety underneath Indian regulation due to the engagement of a “principle concerning public interest” and favoured the submissions made by retired Indian Supreme Court decide Gopala Gowda at a listening to in December 2020 in this regard.

“In my judgment the simple stance taken by Justice Gowda that Section 47 PIA 1920 is evidence of the ability of a secured creditor to relinquish the creditor’s security is to be preferred,” the ruling notes.

The Indian banks, represented by the regulation agency TLT LLP and barrister Marcia Shekerdemian, had been additionally granted prices in totality for the petition hearings, because the “overall successful” occasion in the case.

“Dr Mallya should have been extradited by now. He was refused permission to go to the Supreme Court in May last year,” Shekerdemian identified, in reference to one in all Mallya’s defence planks that the circumstances towards him are “politically motivated”.

The 65-year-old businessman stays on bail in the UK whereas a “confidential” authorized matter, believed to be associated to an asylum software, is resolved in reference to the unrelated extradition proceedings.