Bengaluru: The Karnataka High Court has stayed proceedings initiated by the Serious Fraud Investigation Office (SFIO) against Capt. G.R. Gopinath, former head of Deccan Aviation Ltd. (DAL) and two others, including Vijay Mallya.

Justice K.N. Phaneendra passed the interim order on the petitions filed by Gopinath and two others. Ashok Wadhwa, a promoter of Ambit Group of companies; Vinod Wadhwani, a chartered financial analyst and cost accountant; and Ambit Pvt. Ltd., which is among the five accused companies, are the other petitioners.

The petitioners had questioned the December 28, 2017, order of the Special Court, constituted under the Companies Act, 2013, which had issued arrest warrants against 14 individuals after taking cognisance of a complaint filed by the SFIO based on its investigation report.

In its order, the Special Court had observed that the amount involved in the fraud was several hundred crores, and had hence issued arrest warrants instead of issuing summons to the accused persons, while treating the report submitted by the authorised officer of the SFIO as an investigation report under Section 173 of the Code of Criminal Procedure.