No buyers for Mallya's bungalow

After unsuccessful attempts to sell the Kingfisher House in Mumbai, the brand Kingfisher and a jet, banks attempt to auction Kingfisher Villa in Goa has also failed.

The banks, which lent money to Vijay Mallya’s Kingfisher Airlines, are having a hard time in getting back their money.According to reports, SBICAP Trustee, which was auctioning the property, did not receive the earnest money from interested buyers for the bungalow of Mallya, who has been declared a proclaimed offender by a Mumbai special court.

The reserve price for the property has been set at Rs 85.29 crore and interested buyers were required to submit 10% of the reserve price as earnest money, according to the bidding document.

Lenders, led by State Bank of India, had taken possession of Kingfisher Villa in May after the business tycoon failed to repay principal and interest totalling to over Rs 9,000 crore. Some of the other banks which lent to Mallya include Bank of Baroda, Allahabad Bank, Federal Bank and Axis Bank.

Lenders had earlier tried to auction Kingfisher House in Mumbai. The property found no takers due to a high reserve price, according to real estate experts.

Mallya, 60, often referred to as ‘King of Good Times’, left India on March 2 using a diplomatic passport. The ED is also seeking to invoke the India-United Kingdom Mutual Legal Assistance Treaty to extradite Mallya from Britain.

The ED and the CBI are jointly investigating a bulk of cases against Mallya. It may be recalled, the ED and the CBI had requested Interpol to issue red corner notice against the businessman for evading law enforcement agencies in India.

In the past too, the ED had asked around six lenders of Kingfisher Airlines to furnish details of the financial transactions conducted by the grounded air carrier and its top executives.