Mallya has sought time till April for making personal appearance before the Enforcement Directorate.
Even though Finance Minister Arun Jaitley had said that every penny lent will be recovered from Vijay Mallya but his extradition to India is a difficult task. The Enforcement Directorate (ED) had summoned Mallya to appear on March 18 as a part of its money laundering probe in the alleged default in payment of Rs 900 crore dues to IDBI bank. On the other hand, Mallya has sought time till April for making personal appearance before the probe agency. Thus, a question which arises here will he arrive in India in April and cooperate with ED with the investigation process? Officials said the beleaguered businessman has informed the ED’s investigating officer that he would not be able to keep Friday’s date and sought time till April.
“The summons have been issued to Mallya under provisions of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act in connection with the IDBI case,” they said. The sources said Mallya has also been asked to furnish documents related to his personal finances.
Senior Lawyer Majeed Memon says it is not an easy task to extradite Vijay Mallya to India as similar kind of attempts made for seeking the extradition of some other officials have not succeeded earlier.
Memon said UK might not extradite Mallya due to the existence of strong human rights law there. He said, “Once in UK if fugitive makes and allegation substantive enough to suggest that there is threat to his life and since the country has high degree of human rights preservations that they would not hand over Mallya,” says Memon.
Memon further added that Mallya might file a false case even though there might not be a visible threat to his life. Also the case of cheque bouncing is not as serious an acquisition to get him extradited.
The ED had recently registered a money laundering case against Mallya and others based on a Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) first information report (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 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.
IPL franchise Royal Challengers Bangalore has written to the Indian cricket board (BCCI), intimating them about Vijay Mallya’s resignation from the post of Director of Royal Challengers Sports Private Limited (RCSPL).
The letter stated that Siddhartha Mallya will be present in the Board of Directors “in a limited role should the members wish to consult him”. Adams, who is a Vice-President (Commercial Operations and Cricket Academy at RCB), also made it clear that there will be “no change in ownership pattern” due to Mallya’s resignation.
On the other hand, the auction of Kingfisher House evoked poor response with no bids coming in, presumably due to litigation fears and a high reserve price of Rs 150 crore — dealing a blow to lenders’ efforts to recover their loans.
“There were no bidders. I think the higher reserve price was the reason for it,” said an official involved with the auction conducted by SBI Caps for a consortium of banks led by public sector lender State Bank of India.
