PMLA court summons Vijay Mallya under new Fugitive Ordinance on August 27

Fugitive businessman Vijay Mallya has been summoned by a special PMLA (Prevention of Money Laundering Act) court to appear before it on August 27 under the new Fugitive Economic Offenders Ordinance, officials said on Saturday.

The summon came after the Enforcement Directorate (ED) last week moved to a special court in Mumbai to declare Mallya a “fugitive economic offender” and seize his assets worth Rs 12,500 crore.

The newly promulgated Fugitive Economic Offenders Ordinance gives the ED and other law enforcing agencies power to seize the properties of absconding economic offenders. The ordinance was brought to bring the economic offenders, who flee the country, under the jurisdiction of Indian courts.

Earlier on June 22, Mallya had urged the Karnataka High Court to allow him to sell his assets worth Rs 13,900 crore “under judicial supervision” so that he can “repay creditors including the public sector banks”.

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Mallya had recently broken his silence over the case and claimed that he was trying to clear all the dues with honest intentions since 2016 and even wrote to Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Finance Minister Arun Jaitley.

The 62-year-old businessman, who also owns an Indian Premier League franchise Royal Challengers Bangalore said that he was made the “poster boy of bank default and a lightning rod of public anger” for “politically motivated” reasons.

Reacting to Mallya’s offer to settle the dues, an ED official had reportedly refused his offer to pay the banks money, saying it was "an attempt at plea bargaining and a bid to bolster his case against extradition to India from Britain."

Mallya, however, dismissed the claims of the ED official and suggested him to “read the charge sheet” filed by the enforcement agency.

“I would invite the ED to advance the same plea bargain theory in Court in front of whom I have placed my assets,” he added.