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ED said the UBHL shares attached by the agency as part of its money laundering probe against Mallya were lying with Yes Bank. The Karnataka high court had recently ordered the bank to surrender these “in favour of” the Debt Recovery Tribunal (DRT).
Subsequently, ED said, the recovery officer of the DRT, Bengaluru, published a notice early this month for the sale of a total of 7,404,932 shares of UBHL.
“Based on the submissions made and proactive steps taken by ED and in view of the large outstanding debts of the SBI consortium against Kingfisher Airlines and Vijay Mallya, a special PMLA court allowed sale of shares on 26 March.
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Officials said this was the first such sale of shares in this case and few more will be sold in the days to come.
These shares of UBL (United Breweries Ltd) were held by UBHL and kept with the Yes Bank as security “in lieu of” a loan taken by Kingfisher Airlines, it said.
A large part of this loan taken from Yes Bank had been repaid, ED said, and these pledged shares were now more or less “free from encumbrances and only nominally under the pledge of the bank.”
The ED had attached these shares under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) to ensure that they were not “alienated” or sold by Mallya during the course of investigation and also to ensure that they were sold by government agencies at a later stage. The agency said it had filed a “detailed statement” before the special PMLA court in Mumbai and the Karnataka HC to ensure these shares are not sold off by the accused.
Mallya is at present based in London and extradition proceedings are on to bring him to India. The ED and the CBI are probing parallel criminal cases against him for an alleged bank loan default of Rs 9,000 crore.