King Of Bad Times: Honeymoon Period Over For Vijay Mallya

The Debts Recovery Tribunal (DRT) has ruled against Vijay Mallya in the money laundering case registered by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) against him.

The DRT has ruled that Mallya cannot withdraw the $75 million he received from Diageo to quit the liquor business, until the case is disposed of. The tribunal has set the next hearing of the case for 28 March.

Mallya and others will soon be questioned. The agency has collected relevant documents from concerned authorities and the bank in question.

– Official, Enforcement Directorate

In what was called a ‘sweetheart deal’, Mallya sold his business to Diageo last month. The SBI had asked for the DRT’s intervention in seeking the lenders’ first right to the $75 million payout from Diageo to Mallya. The DRT took up the request on a priority bsis.

The next hearing in the SBI case is scheduled for March 28.

The SBI, which leads a consortium of 17 banks that lent money to the grounded Kingfisher Airlines, had moved the DRT to recover over Rs 7,000 crore of dues from Mallya.

The ED pressed charges under various sections of the PMLA against Mallya and others named in the CBI complaint. The CBI had booked Mallya, Director of Kingfisher Airlines, the company, A Raghunathan, Chief Financial Officer of the airlines, and unknown officials of IDBI Bank in its FIR, alleging that the loan was sanctioned in violation of norms regarding credit limits.

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