Days after the Enforcement Directorate (ED) moved a special court to declare him a fugitive economic offender, a special PMLA (Prevention of Money Laundering Act) court on Saturday summoned embattled liquor baron Vijay Mallya on August 27 under the recently promulgated Fugitive Economic Offenders Ordinance, 2018. Special judge M S Azmi, who is dealing with the PMLA cases, issued the notice to Mallya after taking cognisance of the second ED charge sheet filed against him recently and the subsequent application by it on June 22 seeking a fugitive economic offenders tag. Last week, the agency had filed an application before a special court in Mumbai, seeking to confiscate Mallya's assets worth Rs 12,500 crore under the ordinance. The ordinance gives the law enforcing agencies powers to attach and confiscate the proceeds of crime and properties of economic offenders like bank defaulters or bank fraudsters fleeing the country, and is aimed at deterring economic offenders from evading the process of law by remaining outside the jurisdiction of Indian courts. If Mallya does not appear before the court, he risks being declared a fugitive economic offender, besides properties linked to him being confiscated. Read | What is the Fugitive Economic Offenders Ordinance 2018? However, three days after the ED's move, the promoter of the now grounded Kingfisher Airlines Limited requested the Karnataka High Court on June 22 to allow his firms to sell assets worth Rs 13,900 crore “under judicial supervision” and “repay creditors including the public sector banks” that have declared him a wilful defaulter. According to government data, as on May 15, Kingfisher Airlines owes Rs 9,990 crore to a consortium of 17 public sector banks. The loan defaulter also rubbished aside media reports that his offer to settle the dues was motivated by the latest chargesheet under the fugitive ordinance, news agency IANS had reported this week. Read | Vijay Mallya’s plea: Let my firms sell assets worth Rs 13,900 crore, repay banks Following Mallya’s court application, Minister of State for External Affairs M J Akbar had said: “If Mallya wanted to pay to the banks, I think he had… many, many years in which he could have done so.” Akbar was responding to a question Tuesday about Mallya’s claims that he had tried to settle the dues and had become a victim.
