NBW against Mallya in cheque bounce cases

As if the existing financial woes are not enough, troubled Kingfisher Airlines’ (KfA)  founder Vijay Mallya, was slapped with a non-bailable arrest warrant by a local court in Hyderabad. Apart from the KfA and Vijay Mallya, four others were also accused in the cheque bounce case acting on which the court issued NBW.

The case listed at the 13th Special Magistrate’s court here Friday issued the warrant after Mallya and four others, who failed to appear before the court in a `10.50 crore-cheque bounce case filed by airport operator GMR Hyderabad International Airport Ltd (GHIAL).

In August, GHIAL, which operates the Rajiv Gandhi International Airport in Hyderabad, had filed a case after four cheques aggregating to `10.50 crore issued by KfA bounced.  The cheques were issued as part of the airport user fee including parking, landing and navigation charges to GHIAL.

According to officials, the airlines collects passenger service fee and user development fee from air passengers and remits the same to the GHIAL.

“The KfA collected both the fees from its passengers and issued the cheques to the GHIAL which were dishonoured,’’ a counsel for GHIAL J B Chennakesava Rao told the Express.

The GHIAL sent legal notices to the KfA but the latter did not responded to them forcing the GHIAL to approach the court.

The respondents in the case include Kingfisher, its Chairman Mallya and CEO, Sanjay Agarwal and directors Raghunathan, Inder Singh and Vishveswar.

The court issued summons to the accused and asked them to personally appear before the court on Friday. The counsel of the accused filed a petition dispensing their personal attendance for today which was dismissed by the 13th special court magistrate L Kedarachary.

Dismissing the petition, Magistrate Kedarachary issued NBW against all the accused and posted the matter for further hearing to November 5.

GHIAL had filed four cheque bounce cases against Kingfisher Airlines amounting  to `10.50 crore.