Mumbai, Nov. 21 -- In a relief for Enforcement Directorate's (ED's) Mumbai unit probing the alleged Rs.9,200 -crore bank loan-default cases involving fugitive liquor baron Vijay Mallya's defunct - airline firm Kingfisher Airlines Limited (KAL), the Karnataka High Court has restored its attachment in June 2016 of a Bengaluru high-end flat, while investigating a case related to alleged unpaid loans worth Rs.750 crore of the IDBI Bank, by holding the action as lawful. Holding ED's attachment of the flat to be lawful in its November 14 order, the HC upheld the agency's challenge against an August 2019 order of the Appellate Tribunal (Prevention of Money Laundering Act), New Delhi, which had quashed the asset's 2016 attachment. The high court set aside the Appellate Tribunal's 2019 order, pointing out that the flat was owned by United Breweries (Holdings) Ltd or UBHL that was then directly or indirectly controlled by Mallya, of which KAL was a fully-owned subsidiary, at the time of the attachment. The high court held that UBHL's earlier 'Agreement To Sell' with a local developer's firm, wherein the latter had paid around Rs.18.38 crore, by September 2011, to the former in the form of booking amount and installments, was not legally tenable as it was 'agreement' was unregistered and so, the title did not get transferred. The flat, number 7A with a super built-up area of around 8,321-sq. ft, was among a few under-construction flats located at Kingfisher Tower, Bengaluru, which were attached by the ED on June 11, 2016 as per provisions of the PMLA act in the case. ED's provisional attachment of the flat had earlier been confirmed in December 2016 by the Adjudicating Authority (PMLA). The developer had however challenged the Adjudicating Authority's 'confirmation' before the Appellate Tribunal, which set it aside, quashing the provisional attachment order. The firm thereafter approached the high court against the Appellate Tribunal's order in October 2019, on grounds that it was "unsustainable in law and on facts." The court's order ruled in the favour of ED on two key questions, which were involved in the agency's appeal against the 2019 attachment -cancellation order of the Appellate Tribunal, as per the high court's order accessed by HT: 1. Whether the firm could be said to be the owner of flat on the basis of an unregistered 'Agreement To Sell' dated May 21, 2012? 2. Whether the flat could be attached as 'proceeds of crime' under the concept of 'property', which is equivalent in value, under the provisions of Section 2(1)(u) of PMLA, 2002? The high court said that the "payment of the "almost entire consideration" for the flat, even before the unregistered agreement to sell being executed in favour of the firm by the UBHL, "would cause a huge shadow of doubt of bona fides and genuineness of these transactions." ED's probe in the IDBI case was based on a CBI case July 2015 FIR against Mallya, KAL, and unknown officers of IDBI and others, for allegedly showing undue favour to KAL in the matter of sanction and disbursement of short-term loans. It was alleged that KAL had diverted some of the loan funds, thereby putting the IDBI Bank to a wrongful loss of Rs.750 crore....