Mumbai: In its ninth attempt to sell the property, the Debt Recovery Tribunal finally sold fugitive businessman Vijay Mallya’s Kingfisher House at Vile Parle in Mumbai to a Hyderabad-based realtor for a meagre amount of Rs 52 crore.
Situated near the Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj International Airport at Santacruz in Mumbai, Kingfisher House had failed to attract a buyer for the eighth time during an auction in November 2019.
The initial reserve price of the Kingfisher House, which was once the headquarters of the now defunct Kingfisher Airlines owned by Mallya, was 135 crore. The Hyderabad company Saturn realtors sealed the deal for one-third of the original reserved price.
Saturn Realtors paid ₹2.612 crore as stamp duty to Maharashtra government for this deal. The deal was registered on July 31 last month, reported Hindustan Times.
This money will go to the lenders that have recovered Rs 7,250 crore through the auction of shares of the fugitive businessman. Earlier in June, the special Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) court also enabled the State Bank of India (SBI) and its consortium to sell Mallya’s properties.
Mallya has been declared a willful defaulter and is wanted by Indian authorities for default in payment of loans related to Kingfisher Airlines that was grounded in 2012. He owes over Rs 9,000 crore to the SBI consortium. He left the country in 2016 and is currently residing in the United Kingdom, where he is facing extradition proceedings and was declared a fugitive economic offender in India in 2019.
