Hearing in Vijay Mallya case: ED & CBI joint team leaves for London

Vijay Mallya/ AFP Photo-File

New Delhi: On Wednesday, an ED and CBI joint team left for London for hearing in Vijay Mallya case. Recently, a special court issued an order directing attachment of beleaguered businessman Vijay Mallya and his associates in the UK and Switzerland in connection with the IDBI loan default case. The court last week also allowed the agency's request for issuance of Letter Rogatory to the UK to assist it in the probe. The court also directed issuance of LR to carry out investigations about those accounts. According to the CBI, there were many commissions and omissions on the part of IDBI officials in the process of sanctioning and disbursement of loan of Rs 1,300 crore to Kingfisher Airlines (KFA). According to the chargesheet, about Rs 260 crore was diverted by the KFA, while Rs 263 crore was used to pay salaries, tax deducted at source, income tax and loan installments. A part of the loan amount was also allegedly diverted by Mallya for his "personal expenses", the agency had said. The CBI had said all the arrested IDBI officials were instrumental in sanctioning and facilitating disbursement of the loan. The IDBI allegedly showed "undue favour" to KFA in the matter of sanction and disbursement of short-term loans of Rs 150 crore in October 2009 and Rs 200 crore in November 2009, and another corporate loan of Rs 750 crore in November 2009, the agency had said.