New Delhi: In the eye of storm for his alleged failure in repayment of loans and allegations of loan fraud and money laundering, businessman Vijay Mallya has been declared a proclaimed offender by a special Mumbai court.
The move comes after the Enforcement Directorate moved a PMLA court seeking to declare the liquor baron a proclaimed offender in connection with its money-laundering probe against him in an alleged bank loan fraud case.
"It's an effective step towards securing the presence of Mallya and also one more chance to Mallya to come clean before the court in next 30 days. Failing which all his properties will be attached and sold by government," said lawyer Nitin Venegaonkar, representing the ED.
A person can be termed a proclaimed offender in a criminal case probe if the court has reasons to believe that the accused against whom a warrant of arrest has been issued by it, has absconded or is concealing himself so that such warrant cannot be executed.
As per Section 82 of the CrPC, the court can publish a written proclamation requiring such an accused to appear at a specified place and at a specified time in not less than 30 days from the date of publishing of such a proclamation.
ED has been wanting Mallya to join investigations “in person” in its PMLA probe against him and others in the Rs 900 crore alleged loan fraud of IDBI bank and has virtually exhausted all legal remedies like seeking an Interpol arrest warrant and getting his passport revoked.
It is also seeking to invoke the India-United Kingdom Mutual Legal Assistance Treaty (MLAT) to extradite Mallya from Britain.
Mallya had left India on March 2 using his diplomatic passport, which has now been suspended.
ED registered a money laundering case against Mallya and others based on an FIR registered last year by the CBI.
The agency is also investigating the financial structure of Kingfisher Airlines and looking into any payment of kickbacks to secure loans.
Kingfisher has been unable to justify transferring over Rs 400 crore of IDBI loan overseas.
“ED’s probe revealed that the firm remitted Rs 423 crore outside India out of a total loan of Rs 864 crore received from IDBI bank,” said an agency source.
“The airline remitted the huge fund abroad on pretexts, such as aircraft-lease rentals, but no supporting documents have been furnished so far to substantiate its claims,” it added.
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