The Central Bureau of Investigation has claimed that Kingfisher Airlines chief Vijay Mallya had no intention of honouring a personal guarantee he had given to IDBI Bank, even before his now defunct airline got involved in a Rs 900-crore loan default, The Indian Express reported on Friday.
The CBI had filed a supplementary chargesheet in the case in a Mumbai court against Mallya and officials of Kingfisher Airlines and IDBI Bank last week. The investigating agency submitted a copy of an email allegedly sent by Mallya to PA Murli, a senior official of United Spirits Limited, on January 6, 2012, in the court to support its charge.
“I have been receiving mails from IDBI regarding the KFA account becoming a Non-Performing Asset or NPA. They may do suddenly something. Take the 10 crore out of my account into USL tomorrow itself,” the email from Mallya is reported to have said.
The CBI alleged that using the brand value of Kingfisher Airlines as security for the loan was Mallya’s idea. He later suggested the same to the then Chief Financing Officer of UB Group, Ravi Nedungadi, in an email dated September 10, 2008. The CBI said Mallya wrote to State Bank of India offering the brand value of Kingfisher Airlines as security for the loan in 2009.
“The lending banks, including IDBI, were induced to believe that such a value is an outcome of the diligent exercise of an independent outside expert after rigorous investigation and valuation,” the chargesheet stated. “The investigation reveals that such a favourable report was obtained by deliberately exaggerated financial indicators, which are different from the ones supplied to the banks.”
The CBI had claimed in an earlier chargesheet filed in January that IDBI officials failed to obtain any legal opinion on keeping the Kingfisher Airlines brand, which was an intangible asset, as a collateral for the loan.
On June 14, the Enforcement Directorate had filed its first chargesheet against Mallya and others in the Rs 900-crore IDBI-KFA loan default case. The loan amount was reportedly sanctioned and disbursed by IDBI Bank.
Mallya, who owes 17 banks in India more than Rs 9,000 crore, has been in UK since March 2016 and had earlier said that he would not return to the country. He has been embroiled in a number of cases in India. The Ministry of External Affairs had submitted an extradition request for Mallya on February 9. Later that month, Indian and UK officials met to discuss deportation cases and pending requests to extradite people.
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