The Supreme Court on Tuesday found fugitive businessman Vijay Mallya guilty of contempt for wilful disobedience of the court’s order to come clean about his assets and not disclosing a sum of $40 million he received from British liquor major Diageo Plc following his resignation as Chairman of United Spirits in February 2016.

Mallya had told the Supreme Court that the $40 million was one among “thousands of transactions” he did and cannot be counted as an asset. He said he had no control over that money now as he had already disbursed it among his three children, who are US citizens.

Countering allegations made by a banking consortium led by State Bank of India, which had filed the contempt of court petition against him, Mallya said he had implicitly complied with the Supreme Court order and given a complete list of assets as of March 31, 2016.

The court had ordered Mallya to provide a list of his assets so that banks could recover the ₹9,200 crore due to them. The banks had sought contempt action against Mallya arguing that the disbursal of the $40 million among his three children was in direct violation of a standing Karnataka High Court order that no assets of Mallya should be “alienated, disposed or be subjected to the creation of third party rights”.

“His wilful, contumacious conduct of siphoning off the money and disbursing it out of reach of the authorities ... shows that the gentleman is mocking the Indian judicial system. Please issue an injunction directing him to bring the money back forthwith,” senior advocate Shyam Divan had argued for the banks.

A notice of contempt from the Supreme Court was then already pending against Mallya for allegedly supplying the banks with vague information about his and his family’s assets in India and abroad. But instead of being either present in court or even filing a response to the contempt notice, Mallya had opted to file an application in the Supreme Court for recall of the contempt notice. The court ordered Mallya to be present on July 10 for his sentencing order.

Attorney-General Mukul Rohatgi and senior advocate Shyam Diwan said the businessman was taking the Supreme Court “for a ride” and his conduct showed he cared “two hoots” for the judiciary.

On March 9, Justice Goel had asked Rohatgi whether there was any action that could be taken to secure Mallya’s presence in an Indian court. Rohatgi responded that a case seeking his deportation was before the Westminster Magistrates Court.

It is reported that property worth ₹8,000 crore belonging to Mallya lies attached under the anti-money laundering law and he has income tax dues of about ₹2,000 crore.

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