MUMBAI October 10 India’s Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) searched liquor baron Vijay Mallya’s home and offices on Saturday, in connection with a probe into a loan granted by mid-sized state lender IDBI to his now defunct Kingfisher Airlines. Central bureauof Investigation searched Mallaya’s Residence and Offices at Mumbai, Goa, Bangalore and other places.
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They said a case was registered by the agency against Mallya, Director of defunct Kingfisher Airlines; the company; A Raghunathan, Chief Financial Officer of the Airlines; and unknown officials of IDBI Bank.
Mallya owns a “Hollywood” style Kingfisher Villa at Candolim in Goa.
Punjab National Bank has outstanding dues of Rs 800 crore to Kingfisher, Bank of India Rs 650 crore and Bank of Baroda Rs 550 crore.
The agency had registered a preliminary enquiry previous year too, after the Bank officials failed to provide convincing reasons for agreeing to the loan, in spite of the warning given by CBI.
The sources said there was no need for the bank to take the exposure outside the consortium. Kingfisher Airlines suspended its operations in 2012, after running into financial troubles.
The CBI sources said an FIR into the alleged violations was registered recently as part of its wide probe into criminal aspects of loans declared to be non-performing assets (NPAs) by public sector banks. It lost its operator’s licence on October 20, 2012.
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The Kolkata-headquartered United Bank of India (UBI), which was owed Rs. 400 crore by Kingfisher, first declared Mallya a wilful defaulter in May 2014. But Mallya’s lawyers managed to convince the Calcutta High Court in December that the process of declaring him so was faulty.
