Court orders attachment of liquor baron Vijay Mallya’s properties

rchopra@tribunemail.com

New Delhi, March 23

A Delhi court has ordered attachment of liquor baron Vijay Mallya’s properties in Bengaluru in a case relating to FERA violations.

Chief Metropolitan Magistrate Deepak Sherawat issued fresh directions after the Bengaluru police, through Enforcement Directorate’s special public prosecutor NK Matta and advocate Samvedna Verma, sought more time to execute its earlier order in this regard.

The court directed the state police to attach the properties by July 10, the next date of hearing.

The Bengaluru police had earlier informed the court that it had identified 159 properties belonging to Mallya, but had not been able to attach any of them.

Mallya was declared a proclaimed offender by the court on January 4 last year for evading its summons in the case.

The court had on May 8 last year directed the attachment of Mallya’s properties in the case through the Bengaluru police commissioner and sought a report on it.

It had declared Mallya a proclaimed offender for evading summons in a Foreign Exchange Management Act (FERA) violation case after noting that he had failed to appear despite repeated summonses.

It had on April 12, 2017 issued an open-ended non-bailable warrant (NBW) against the liquor baron.

Unlike a non-bailable warrant, an ‘open-ended NBW’ does not carry a time limit for execution. PTI