Want to settle but being made scapegoat: Vijay Mallya

MUMBAI: A day before an Enforcement Directorate court is likely to take up a case to declare Vijay Mallya a fugitive and allow it to confiscate his assets, the former liquor baron renewed his “offer of settlement” to Indian authorities. However, junior foreign minister M J Akbar on Tuesday said if “Mallya wanted to repay his bank dues...he had many, many years in which he could have done so.”

Mallya said there has been no response to several offers of settlement sent to bank chiefs, the FM and the PM in the past. He said the government was keen on securing his presence in India only to make him “a lightning rod of public anger” and was not serious about settling loan defaults.

In a five-page statement on Monday Mallya made public his letters to PM Narendra Modi and FM Arun Jaitley, adding that he was doing so “to put things in the right perspective”. He repeated the contention that he was made the “poster boy of bank default” even as banks and borrowers have reached one-time settlements in the past and lenders were taking “significant haircuts under the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code before the NCLT ”.

“I respectfully say I have made and continue to make every effort, in good faith to settle with public sector banks. If politically motivated extraneous factors interfere, there is nothing that I can do,” he said in the open letter also posted on Twitter. Incidentally, the statement comes weeks ahead of the final hearing by a court in London which would decide on the Indian government’s request for extradition.

“The CBI and ED have filed chargesheets against me with various untenable and blatantly false allegations acting at the behest of the government and lending banks. The ED has also attached assets belonging to me, my group companies and companies owned or controlled by my family under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act currently valued at Rs 13,900 crore,” the letter, which appeared belligerent and desperate in equal in parts, said.

Mallya, 62, pointed out that United Breweries Holdings and he have filed an application before the Karnataka HC even as late this month, setting out available assets totalling almost Rs 14,000 crore.

“We have requested the court’s permission to allow us to sell these assets under judicial supervision and repay creditors, including the public sector banks, such amounts as may be directed and determined by the court,” he said, while adding that “if the criminal agencies such as ED or CBI object to my proposal, and object to the sale of assets, it will clearly demonstrate that there is an agenda against me beyond recovery of dues to the banks”.

The former Rajya Sabha member contended that the consortium of 17 banks led by SBI made various loans to KFA of approximately Rs 5,500 crore, though “I am accused by politicians and the media alike of having stolen and run away with Rs 9,000 crore that was loaned to Kingfisher Airlines”. The statement said recoveries of about Rs 1,880 crore have been made till date (including Rs 1,280 crore deposited with Karnataka HC).

The letter noted that the consortium of banks had filed proceedings before the Debt Recovery Tribunal for recovery of Rs 6,200 crore, including unapplied interest of Rs 1,200 crore. Mallya countered the CBI and ED chargesheets that have accused him of fraudulent borrowing with no intention to repay, siphoning and misuse of funds for non-airline purposes and criminal conspiracy to obtain loans through lies and misrepresentation.

He said SBI’s letter to the RBI in 2012 explaining that the position was beyond the airline’s control while confirming that the promoters (UB Group) had infused substantial funds, appraisals of financial projections that were vetted by SBI Capital Markets and his own communications to the banks offering to settle the loans would blunt the chargesheets.

Mallya alleged that ED has “misused its vast powers under PMLA” to attach assets worth Rs 13,900 crore as “proceeds of crime” on the pretext that guarantors were refusing to honour their corporate and personal guarantees to repay banks. “The ED has even attached assets acquired in 1902, inherited assets and assets acquired even before airline was formed ... How then, can assets created before KFA existed be considered “proceeds of crime?” he said.

“I am tired of this relentless pursuit of me by the government and its criminal agencies. All my efforts are either ignored or misunderstood," the statement added.