Vijay Mallya’s request to seek more access to court-held assets to finance his legal fees in India was dismissed on Wednesday by a High Court judge in London, who said that the 65-year-old billionaire had failed to give adequate evidence in support of the over 750,000 pounds requested.
Justice Robert Miles of the Chancery Division delivered his decision in favor of a consortium of Indian banks led by the State Bank of India(SBI) at a remote hearing.
He also directed Mr. Mallya to cover 95 percent of the costs of the appeal as the banks had been “very substantially successful” and the “overall winners” in fighting the case to prevent further sanctions from the court-held funds.
“The amount being sought was substantial, being over 550,000 pounds in respect of incurred costs and well over 200,000 pounds in respect of the future,” said Justice Miles.
“There was no breakdown of the incurred costs between the various sets of proceedings, there was no attempt to justify the incurred costs by reference to steps already taken; no invoices, bills of costs, descriptive schedules, or other evidence was provided in support of the number of costs being sought,” he said, adding that the proceedings in India appear to be “stagnant”.
The latest appeal follows Deputy Insolvency and Companies Court Judge Nigel Barnett’s February order that gave Mr. Mallya permission to use around 1.1 million pounds from the Court Funds Office (CFO) towards his living expenses and to meet legal expenses only related to the ongoing bankruptcy proceedings in the UK – the next hearing for which is scheduled for July 26.
The CFO’s expenses might be scrutinised further if the banks’ case, which was filed in pursuit of a judgement debt of over 1 billion pounds, is resolved.
