The Enforcement Directorate on Friday issued fresh summons to debt-tapped businessman Vijay Mallya to appear before it on April 2 for questioning in the investigations into the alleged money laundering in the IDBI bank loan default case.
A day after Mallya expressed his inability to keep his date with it on Friday as scheduled earlier and sought more time to join the investigations, the ED accepted the beleaguered businessman’s plea and served fresh summons on the latter to present himself before the agency on April 2 for questioning in the alleged money laundering involving the Rs 900 crore dues to IDBI bank from the now-defunct Kingfisher airlines.
After Mallya sent an email communication seeking time till April to join the investigations in the IDBI loan default-money laundering case, a senior ED official had said on Thursday that the agency would take a call in the matter after studying the reasons cited by the businessman for his inability to appear before the investigating officials.
After considering Mallya’s reply in which he had referred to a communication that he had sent to another investigating agency saying that he would be out of the county during March, the ED top brass accepted his request for more more time and decided to issue fresh summons to him.
The ED issued fresh summons to Mallya under the provisions of the Prevention of Money laundering Act (PMlA) which required him to furnish documents related to his personal investments and finances, Income Tax Returns for the last five years and Passport.
Incidentally, ED Director Karnal Singh has been camping in the city since Thursday to supervise the agency’s two ongoing high profile investigations involving Mallya and Maharashtra’s former Deputy CM Chhagan Bhujbal.
Based on a case registered by the CBI last year, the ED had recently registered a money laundering case against Mallya and others. The agency is also investigating the overall financial structure of the now defunct Kingfisher Airlines and will look into any payment of kickbacks to secure loan.
The ED is looking into the “proceeds of crime” that would have been generated using the slush funds of the alleged loan fraud. The agency is also investigating if some of this amount was sent abroad illegally. It is also looking for details of overseas and domestic assets of Mallya and his company officials, in coordination with central security agencies and the CBI.
The ED has also written to the 17-bank consortium, led by SBI, which lent money to the grounded airlines, and later went to the Debt Recovery Tribunal (DRT) for recovery of these dues. It has also made official requests to the Income Tax and Service Tax departments and the Serious Frauds Investigation Office (SFIO) seeking details of their investigations against the now-defunct Kingfisher Airline in the past.