A day after a London court granted Vijay Mallya relief till December in an extradition case, the Enforcement Directorate (ED) on Wednesday submitted a charge sheet in a Mumbai special court against the businessman and six others in a Rs 900-crore money laundering case.
The Directorate will send a copy of the charge sheet, which runs into over 5,000 pages, to the United Kingdom to make the case against the businessman stronger. ED lawyer H S Venegaonkar said the charge sheet will add to the evidence produced by India before the courts in London. Besides Mallya, also named are Kingfisher’s chief financial officer A Raghunathan, IDBI Bank’s former chairman and managing director Yogesh Agrawal, and four others.
The charge sheet said the first tranche of Rs 150 crore of the total loan of Rs 900 crore was sanctioned in 2009 to KFA within a day of Mallya meeting Agrawal. Five IDBI officials, including Agrawal, entered into a conspiracy with Mallya and sanctioned the loan to the now-defunct KFA after violating banking norms and manipulating the record. KFA later defaulted on the loan.
Yet, it was submitted to the Bank, and IDBI officials granted the loan. The ED document said IDBI sanctioned the loan to KFA in three stages — Rs 150 crore, Rs 200 crore and Rs 550 crore. Of this, Mallya took Rs 417 crore abroad with the help of inflated flight lease rent agreement, which is part of the charge sheet.
Sources said Mallya never offered his personal assets as collateral security with the bank and used the brand value report meant for internal use to avail loans. The charge sheet said KFA took the loan saying it will clear creditors’ dues and for working capital, but it was used for other purposes. Some of the money was allegedly diverted to other companies associated with Mallya.
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