New Delhi: After a special Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) court passed an order
permitting the sale of certain real estate properties and securities of Vijay Mallya to recover his unpaid loans, the Fugitive businessman on Friday questioned “where was the fraud" committed by him. Taking to Twitter, the liquor baron said, “Have been watching TV and the repeated mention of my name as a cheat and fraudster. Does nobody consider that my assets far in excess of Kingfisher Airline borrowings have been attached by ED and several of my settlement offers to repay 100%? Where is the cheating or fraud?" The PMLA court ordered that some of his real estate properties and securities that were seized by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) can be sold by a State Bank of India (SBI) led consortium.
The combined value of property to be restored to banks runs into several crore rupees, a lawyer representing Mallya said. Mallya has accused in a bank loan default case of over Rs 9,000 crore involving his defunct Kingfisher Airlines. A consortium of 17 banks that gave Mallya loans, led by the State Bank of India, had sought restoration of his properties seized by the ED. The properties as described in the application are hereby restored to the applicant banks through the recovery officer, the court said. The court rejected Mallya’s application seeking a stay on the order. The said order is a conditional one in which the concerned recovery officer has been directed to submit an undertaking as per provisions of Prevention of Money Laundering (Restoration of Property) Rules, 2016, the court said. The court added that, obviously, it will take time to submit such an undertaking, and in the meantime, the aggrieved party may challenge the said order, and, therefore, there is no need to stay the order.