All allegations against me are fabricated, says Vijay Mallya

NEW DELHI: After keeping mum for more than a year on CBI and ED charges against him, former liquor baron Vijay Mallya has now said that allegations against him are "wild, baseless and deliberately fabricated".

As reported by TOI on Monday, the Central Bureau of Investigation and Enforcement Directorate have recently uncovered that Mallya had diverted major chunk of Rs 6027 crore loan, taken from a consortium of 17 banks led by SBI, to several countries including, the US, the UK, France and Ireland. Both the agencies are now planning to file chargesheet against him and present it as evidence in the UK court so that his extradition could be expedited.

Mallya responded to a Times of India mail, stating, "As matters are sub-judice, I cannot comment in detail but I reject all these wild baseless and deliberately fabricated allegations", while referring to himself as former Member of Parliament and Chairman of UB Group.

His last response to Indian media was on June 12, 2016.

He had told TOI in a detailed email response at that time that investigative agencies were pursuing a biased investigation against him and already holding him guilty without trial despite he reached out to the banks asking them to nominate a committee to sit across the table and negotiate a one-time settlement.

He had said that ED has attached his properties and assets of United Breweries Holdings Limited, which is a public company and not even the subject of any ED investigation. "The assets purportedly attached under PMLA date back to several years prior to the launch of Kingfisher Airlines. There is no rationale nor any legal basis for the series of actions initiated by the ED which is now making it more difficult to raise resources to pay the banks. Purely civil matters such as loan recovery are being connected with criminal allegations without any basis whatsoever," he had claimed them.

He had also claimed that he didn't run from India.