A sorry saga of flight, fraud and failure

Tycoon in trouble: Industrialist's dream run is heading towards a dead end

Troubled times seem to have deepened for industrialist Vijay Mallya who had a dream run, expanding his business from liquor to aviation to IPL.

Mallya’s businesses were in the ascendancy in the first decade of the 21st century, but his empire landed in trouble soon with Kingfisher Airlines’ account books landing in the red. The airlines shut operations in 2012.

After getting bail from a Westminster court, Mallya said the jubilation over the development is nothing but “usual Indian media hype”, adding, “extradition hearing in court started today as expected”.

Mallya left for the United Kingdom on March 2, 2016, after banks approached the Supreme Court seeking action against him for not settling loans taken for the now defunct Kingfisher Airlines.

The then Rajya Sabha MP, who resigned two months later in May following intense pressure and a possible expulsion from Parliament, used his diplomatic passport to get out of the country.

The arrest comes as a shot in the arm for the NDA government, which faced an Opposition onslaught for letting him leave the country.

Mountain of trouble
At present, he is facing two cases registered by the CBI on separate loan default complaints filed by SBI on behalf of a consortium of banks and IDBI. Another FIR was filed by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) on money laundering charges.

The CBI FIR talks about Mallya seeking to recast his loan repayment in which certain information was “suppressed”.

Another case is about the non-payment of IDBI loan. In January, former IDBI chairman Yogesh Agrawal and seven others were arrested by the CBI for their involvement in sanctioning around Rs 900 crore to Kingfisher Airlines.

According to the CBI FIR filed in July 2015, IDBI officials colluded with the promoters/directors and the then chief financial officer of Kingfisher Airlines to sanction credit limits in violation of banking norms, thereby causing loss to the bank by “such fraudulent” act.

The ED has already attached Mallya’s assets worth Rs 8,041 crore in two instalments, in June and September.

The assets which were attached include bank balance of Rs 34 crore, a flat each in Bengaluru and Mumbai, a 4.5 acre industrial plot in Chennai, a 28.75 acre coffee plantation in Coorg and residential and commercial constructed area in UB City and Kingfisher Tower in Bengaluru, among others.

 

Digvijaya blames Centre for bail
AICC general secretary and Karnataka in-charge Digvijaya Singh accused the BJP-led NDA government at the Centre of helping industrialist Vijay Mallya get bail in the United Kingdom, reports DHNS from Dharwad.

Singh told reporters: “This is all a big drama. Without support from the Modi-led NDA government at the Centre, Mallya could not have remained elusive...Now, even before he was arrested in London, where he is staying, the BJP government has ensured that he got bail before the CBI could catch up with him...”