Mallya offers to sell assets to repay bank loans
bengaluru — Fugitive tycoon Vijaya Mallya has sought the Karnataka High Court’s permission to let him and his holding firm UBHL sell their assets under judicial supervision and repay creditors, including state-run banks.
“UBHL (United Breweries Holding Ltd) and myself have filed an application before the Karnataka High Court on June 22, setting out available assets of about Rs13,900 crore,” said Mallya from London in a statement released by his office here on Tuesday.
Mallya has requested the court’s permission to allow him to sell the assets under judicial supervision and repay creditors, including the state-run banks such amounts as may be directed and determined by the court.
The 62-year-old liquor baron, who fled India on March 2, 2016, has been living in London since then despite summons from Indian courts and law enforcement agencies to appear before them for trial in various related cases.
Asserting that recovery of loans was a civil matter, Mallya said the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) and Enforcement Directorate (ED) had, however, criminalised it in his case by moving against him aggressively despite his intentions to settle the dues with the banks.
“The CBI and ED seem determined to frame criminal charges against me on the pretext of nonpayment to the banks. The motivation, however, seems to be to secure my presence in India to face charges than to determine if the evidence collected by the investigative agencies demonstrates criminal charges against me or to permit me to sell assets and repay creditors,” he said.
Claiming that the bulk of the dues were on account of interest, Mallya said owing to injunctions, attachments and refusal to grant permission to sell the assets, it (interest) had kept mounting.
Observing that he became the “Poster Boy” of bank default and a lightning rod of public anger, Mallya said though he wrote letters to Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitely on April 15, 2016 clarifying his position and seeking their intervention to settle the dues, there was no response from either of them. —