A consortium of banks on Tuesday told the High Court of Karnataka that the Official Liquidator (OL) is not aware about the state of affairs or the details of the assets of United Breweries (Holding) Company Ltd. (UBHL) even now, though the order for winding up the company was passed in February, 2017.
Senior Counsel S.S. Naganand, appearing for the banks, said that the OL filed an application before the company court to stay a public notice issued by the recovery officer of the Debt Recovery Tribunal (DRT) to sell certain shares as per its decree order for recovering amounts, due to the banks in the Kingfisher Airlines Ltd. case, from the corporate guarantors — UBHL and businessman Vijay Mallaya.
The submissions in this regard were made before a Division Bench comprising Justice B.V. Nagarathna and Justice H.T. Narendra Prasad during the hearing of an appeal against the February 7, 2017 order of the company court for winding up UBHL to recover the money to be paid to the secured and unsecured creditors of the KAL.
Mr. Nanganand also pointed out to the Bench the OL had not moved the Court seeking modification of the court’s April 2017 order “not to precipitate the matter during the pendency of the appeal.”
Meanwhile, UBHL, which had earlier filed an application for court-monitored sale of company’s assets along with assets of several “contributor companies” to recover the dues instead of winding up the company, on Monday did not press the plea for the time being after the Bench orally indicated that it is not in favour of court-monitored process.
On the other hand, while the Counsel for OL claimed that the DRT’s Recovery Officer (RO) has not intimated the OL about the public notice to sell the shares, the Counsel for RO made it clear that the RO did notify the OL on the process to sell the shares.
Following these submissions, the Bench clarified that there is no impediment for the RO to go ahead with the process initiated for selling the shares but the RO will have to adhere to the guidelines of the Supreme Court in this process.
