Fugitive liquor baron Vijay Mallya on Thursday said that CBI and Enforcement Directorate’s action against him is “totally unreasonable”.
London| Liquor tycoon Vijay Mallya has once again asked the Indian banks to take back 100 per cent of the principal amount owed to them at the end of his three-day British High Court appeal on Thursday against an extradition order to India.
The 64-year-old former Kingfisher Airlines boss, wanted in India on charges of fraud and money laundering amounting to an alleged Rs 9,000 crores in unpaid bank loans, said the Enforcement Directorate (ED) and the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) are fighting over the same assets and not treating him reasonably in the process.
“I request the banks with folded hands, take 100 per cent of your principal back, immediately,” he said outside the Royal Courts of Justice in London.
“The Enforcement Directorate attached the assets on the complaint by the banks that I was not paying them. I have not committed any crimes under the PMLA (Prevention of Money Laundering Act) that the Enforcement Directorate should suo moto attach my assets,” he said.
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“I am saying, please banks take your money. The ED is saying no, we have a claim over these assets. So, the ED on the one side and the banks on the other are fighting over the same assets,” he added.
The Indian government on Wednesday restated its allegation that Vijay Mallya willfully deceived the financial health of the now-defunct Kingfisher Airlines, as the fraud-accused liquor baron’s appeal against his extradition to India continued at the High Court in London.
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