Contempt petition filed only against Mallya: Bank counsel

The contempt petition in the Karnataka High Court has been filed only against liquor baron Vijay Mallya alleging breach of an oral undertaking given before the Debt Recovery Tribunal that they would not alienate unencumbered assets nor deal with them, Counsel for a consortium of banks clarified on Wednesday.

"The consortium of banks had filed a contempt petition against Dr Vijay Mallya alleging breach of an oral undertaking given before the DRT at Bangalore during the proceedings relating to the Original Application filed by the consortium of banks against Kingfisher Airlines, United Breweries Holdings Limited and Dr Vijay Mallya," according to a written clarification issued by S S Naganand, senior counsel for consortium of banks.

The consortium on Tuesday had submitted before Justice N K Patil that an undertaking was given before the DRT that neither would the unencumbered assets be alienated nor dealt with but Mallya went ahead and created pledges in violation.

Justice Patil gave a notice to Mallya and two other companies in contention and posted the matter for another day.

A consortium of 17 banks, which had collectively lent over Rs 7,000 crore (Rs 70 billion) to the crisis-ridden airline, have initiated recovery proceedings under the available legal avenues using the underlining securities which they had.

The securities included shares in multiple group companies and real estate. In February 2013, bankers publicly stated they had lost faith in the management's ability to revive the company.