Indian entrepreneurs Pankaj and Radhika Oswal have been barred indefinitely from leaving Australia after they arrived from overseas this week for court battles over their crumbled empire.

The Australian Taxation Office issued the pair with Departure Prohibition Orders over Mrs Oswal’s unpaid $190 million tax bill, which will go to court in June.

Speaking in Sydney yesterday where they are preparing for several court cases linked to their former Burrup fertiliser plant, the pair said they may return to their Dalkeith home for some of their stay. They have been trying unsuccessfully since mid- 2014 to get a guarantee from the Tax Commissioner that they would not be stopped from leaving Australia to return to their New York home.

But they said yesterday it was always their intention to eventually come back and address the outstanding bill.

Mr Oswal said they timed their return with their two separate cases against ANZ, Yarra International and Apache Energy — which are due to start next month — because they needed the winnings to pay the tax bill.

Mr Oswal said he was prepared to spend a long time in Australia, and was eager to “seek justice in court”.

“When I landed in Australia, I told my wife Radhika that...we might be here for six months, or we might be here for a month, or we might be here for six years,” Mr Oswal said.

“It’s not that we were forced to come here. We came here on our own choice, to fight a legal case, to give back the money we owe to the ATO — if we owe anything.”

The pair left suddenly in 2011 after ANZ recalled loans of $860 million on their 65 per cent-owned Burrup fertiliser plant, over financial irregularities.

The bank claims Mr Oswal still owes about $100 million and the Oswals are seeking damages over losses they incurred after the plant was put into receivership.

The tax office has argued that Mrs Oswal tried to defraud and hinder creditors by placing a $45 million mortgage over their two properties in Peppermint Grove and Dalkeith. The pair dispute the claim.