While the Enforcement Directorate (ED) on Friday issued a second summons to liqour baron Vijay Mallya, asking him to appear before the agency on April 2, the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) has decided to exert pressure on the banks involved in the case.
According to sources in CBI, the agency had in fact made correspondence with some of the 17 banks involved in loans to the now-defunct Kingfisher Airlines and asked to co-operate. A senior CBI official also confirmed the same to dna stating that at least two banks in his knowledge were asked to respond to allegations of wilful default.
"The agency had contacted IDBI twice in the past. United Bank of India was contacted in early 2016," confirmed the official.
Another senior CBI official said the agency would be questioning several bank officials in the coming weeks and try to narrow down on officials who might have allegedly colluded and showed undue favour to Mallya's companies.
"The CBI can only act when a complaint is received as we did in case of IDBI. Banks have an internal machinery that can easily fix accountability on their officials who have connived in cases of frauds or willful defaulting," said the official. The agency said that out of the five lakh transactions, around 60% of them involve fund flow to foreign counties but refused to divulge the names of the countries.
So far, the CBI was investigating just a single loan default case, which involved KFA's non-return of IDBI Bank's Rs 900 crore in 2009. The agency said that the loans were sanctioned even though Mallya's company was having negative financials and negative net worth.
Senior CBI officials also told dna that the agency had expanded its probe to include the firm's default on loans from IDBI and the 16 other public sector banks and will be checking close to five lakh bank transactions of Mallya made between 2004-2016. A total of Rs 7,000 crore was borrowed during 2004-12.
While the agency has focused on Mallya himself, the axe is also likely to fall on several of the 17 banks. The official also said the probe has expanded its scope to include an angle of cheating as well.
A number of senior officials of the IDBI have already been questioned in the case who, along with Mallya, were booked under section 120-B (criminal conspiracy), 409 (criminal breach of trust by public servant) of Indian Penal Code and under appropriate sections of Prevention of Corruption Act 1988.
CBI investigators list three major transactions in which Kingfisher Airlines were sanctioned loans at various points of time in 2009. On a loan request made on October 1, 2009, the credit committee comprising OV Bundellu, BK Batra and R Bansal, sanctioned a loan of Rs 150 crore on October 7, 2009. According to the CBI documents, Mallya was given the loan after he met with the then IDBI chairman and MD, Yogesh Aggarwal. It was "the last loan" given to Mallya before his business entered a "bad phase".
Curtsy: DNA http://www.dnaindia.com/money/report-a-bevy-of-bankers-to-face-cbi-heat-in-kingfisher-case-as-vijay-mallya-stays-off-2191139
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