Mallya seeks more time to appear before ED in PMLA case
New Delhi/MUMBAI: Amid a raging row over Vijay Mallya fleeing the country, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley on Thursday said the banks will recover every penny of loan given to him and investigative agencies will take strong action against the liquor baron wherever he is found to have violated the law. Mallya, promoter of long-grounded Kingfisher Airlines, had left India on March 2, presumably for London, days before Supreme Court heard a plea of clutch of state-owned banks seeking recovery of over Rs 9,000 crore from his group firms. “… his (Mallya’s) facts are very clear. Every government agency, whether its taxation department or investigative agency, wherever he has violated law, is going to take strong action. As far as banks are concerned, they are going to recover every penny of the rupee that they can from him,” Jaitley said.
The minister was answering questions at India Today Conclave on what the government was doing to recover money from Mallya, who is currently in the UK. He also said the government has been trying to address the problem of NPAs in sectors like steel, textile, highways and infrastructure, which are on account of economic slowdown. “NPAs due to sectoral slowdown would cease to be NPAs once there is an upturn,” he added. However, Jaitley said, the real source of worry was the cases involving “misconduct” on the part of individuals.
“There is a second category where large amounts of loans have been given in individual cases and some of the people misconducted themselves, there may not be adequate sureties and that’s a source of worry… this is the one, which is real cause of worry because there are moral and ethical issues without legal liability “The kind of example (Mallya case)… has brought a huge bad name to both to India’s banking as also to India’s private sector. It’s dangerous for the future if (we) are not able to remedy this,” he said. He further said the immediate job of the government was to make sure public sector banks remained strong. “So I am trying to recapitalise banks.”
Meanwhile, liquor baron Vijay Mallya sought time till April for making a personal appearance before the ED, virtually making it clear he would not present himself before the anti-money laundering agency pursuant to summons issued by it in the IDBI bank loan default case.
Officials said the beleaguered businessman has informed the Enforcement Directorate’s investigating officer that he would not be able to keep tomorrow’s date and sought time till April. They said the agency officials are mulling options and “studying the reply and reasons” cited by Mallya in his communication and will take a final decision soon whether to grant his request or not. ED had earlier issued summonsto Mallya for “personal appearance” on March 18 under the provisions of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA).
The ED had recently registered a money laundering case against Mallya and others based on a CBI FIR registered last year. The agency is also investigating the overall financial structure of the now defunct Kingfisher Airlines and will look into any payment of kickbacks to secure loan. The CBI had booked Mallya, the Chairman of Kingfisher Airlines, its Directors, former Chief Financial Officer of the airlines A Raghunathan and unknown officials of IDBI Bank in its FIR alleging that the loan was sanctioned in violation of norms regarding credit limits.
The ED is looking into the “proceeds of crime” that would have been generated using the slush funds of the alleged loan fraud. It is also probing if some of this amount was sent abroad illegally. The agency has also written to the 17-bank consortium, led by SBI, which lent money to the grounded airlines, and later went to the Debt Recovery Tribunal (DRT) for recovery of these dues. It has also sent official requests seeking details of the probe conducted by the Income Tax and Service Tax departments and the Serious Frauds Investigation Office (SFIO) against the airline in the past. Besides, the central agency is looking for details of overseas and domestic assets of Mallya and his company officials, in coordination with central security agencies and the CBI. It has already questioned two senior officials in the money laundering case– Raghunathan and former United Breweries Chief Financial Officer Ravi Nedungadi along with a few other accused. (PTI)