Congress chief Rahul Gandhi took on Prime Minister Narendra Modi on the Vijay Mallya issue and said that the ‘great escape’ of the embattled liquor baron was aided by the CBI and approved by the PM.
‘Mallya’s Great Escape was aided by the CBI quietly changing the “Detain” notice for him, to “Inform”. The CBI reports directly to the PM. It is inconceivable that the CBI, in such a high profile, controversial case, would change a lookout notice without the approval of the PM,’ Gandhi tweeted on Friday.
Mallya’s Great Escape was aided by the CBI quietly changing the “Detain” notice for him, to “Inform”. The CBI reports directly to the PM. It is inconceivable that the CBI, in such a high profile, controversial case, would change a lookout notice without the approval of the PM.
This was the direct attack against the Prime Minister by the Congress chief, who has been so far demanding resignation of Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley after Mallya claimed that he had met Jaitley days before leaving India.
While the verdict in Mallya’s extradition case will be announced on December 10, the political storm in India is only going stronger.
Though the finance minister has categorically denied meeting Mallya in office and said that Kingfisher boss accosted him in the Central Hall of Parliament, Congress leader PL Punia claims that he saw Jaitley in “an elaborate 15-20 minute meeting” with Mallya on March 1, 2016, a day before the businessman left India.
Mallya left the country on March 2, 2016 while 13 banks moved the apex court four days later seeking its intervention to prevent the businessman from leaving the country.
Mallya has been facing legal proceedings for defaulting on loans of more than Rs 9,000 crore from a consortium of 17 banks.
The Supreme Court had raised some unsavoury questions to the banks that approached. It wondered why loans were given to Mallya when he was already a defaulter and was facing proceedings in the court of law.
SBI had in the first week of March 2016 moved the Debt Recovery Tribunal in Bangalore claiming the first right on the payment by Diageo to Mallya and seeking to impound passport.
