Vijay Mallya has been taken to court by a consortium of 17 banks for failing to repay nearly a billion dollars in debt owed by the now-defunct airline.
Highlights
- In 2009, Vijay Mallya got a Rs 900-crore loan from state-run IDBI Bank
- CBI: Loan okayed despite memo saying Kingfisher failed to meet compliance
- It was misused, the CBI says, to pay off parts of other Kingfisher debts
Though Kingfisher Airlines was in acute financial distress in 2009, owner Vijay Mallya managed to get a 900-crore loan from state-run bank IDBI, which ignored warnings from some of its officers to hastily and unusually clear the massive amount in just a month, according to the country's top investigating agency.
Mr Mallya, who owned India's biggest spirits company, has been taken to court by a consortium of 17 banks for failing to repay nearly a billion dollars in debt owed by the now-defunct airline.
"All enquiries conducted have failed to find evidence of misappropriation of funds by Kingfisher Airlines or myself," Mr Mallya had said in a statement.
But details of the
CBI's case against Mr Mallya, 60, suggests blatant collusion between Mr Mallya and bank officials. The 14-page FIR or document that lays out the CBI's evidence against the entrepreneur has been exclusively accessed by NDTV. It states that he was given the loan after he met with the IDBI chief, Yogesh Aggarwal, and that their meeting was referred to by the bank in various documents
The loan was then misused, the CBI says, to pay off parts of other debts that Kingfisher had accrued, and large amounts were sent abroad on false pretexts. That is what a separate
money-laundering case, filed earlier this week against Mr Mallya, also alleges.
The CBI finds that loan was sanctioned despite an IDBI memo which warned that Kingfisher had failed to meet basic compliance- including depositing nearly 100 crores of tax deduction from its employees.
A spokesperson for the bank told NDTV that,"IDBI Bank has sanctioned loans to Kingfisher Airlines after following due process" and that it has furnished information sought by investigators.
Mysteriously the CBI FIR also shows Mr Mallya's address in a villa in Dubai, in addition to a residence in Goa. Queries sent to United Breweries Group were not returned.
On Monday, a court blocked Mr Mallya's 75 million dollar settlement with Diageo, which bought his liquor company in 2014. Banks have said they should have first rights to that money.