The Delhi high court has asked the enforcement directorate to respond to a petition by Chinese mobile phone maker Vivo seeking access to its frozen bank accounts from which it wants to meet looming liabilities.

Justice Yashwant Sinha asked the federal agency to clarify its position on Vivo’s request.

The ED had frozen Vivo’s bank accounts after a money laundering probe revealed that the Chinese firm had siphoned a substantial sum of money out of the company through a web of companies to dodge taxes. Vivo has denied the charge.

“Zoheb Hossain, learned counsel appearing for the enforcement directorate (ED), is requested to obtain instructions in respect of the reliefs as prayed in the writ petition,” said the court as it directed that the matter be listed for consideration on July 13.

“... bearing in mind the financial constraints which are expressed in the writ petition and are also set forth in the representation of July 7, the court directs the respondent (ED) to attend to that representation in light of the power of according prior permission to deal with the seized property as is envisaged (in the PMLA Act),” ordered the court.

Senior advocates Sidharth Luthra and Siddharth Aggarwal, appearing for Vivo, submitted that the freezing of the bank accounts has brought the functioning of the petitioner to a standstill and there are crores of rupees that have to be paid as statutory dues apart from the payment of salaries to its employees.

They said that there was “no factual foundational basis” behind the search operation and the freezing of the bank account was the petitioner’s “civil death”.

“Statutory liabilities on an average every day is Rs 25 plus crores … Today, Rs 40.5 crore is what is the actual total payment — Rs 25 crore is statutory dues. Tomorrow, I have to pay Rs 52 crore as custom duty,” Luthra said.