September 12, 2018
Finance minister Arun Jaitley dismissed fugitive tycoon's claim.
Vijay Mallya’s claimed that he had met the minister before flying out of the country in March 2016 & offered to settle his unpaid loans.
Finance minister Arun Jaitley dismissed fugitive tycoon's claim.
The minister said Mallya’s version is “factually false” & “doesn't reflect the truth”.
In a Facebook blog, the minister described his only interaction with him as a “one sentence exchange” when the liquor baron misused his privilege as a Rajya Sabha member in parliament complex.
“He paced up to catch up with me & while walking uttered a sentence that “I am making an offer of settlement”, the minister recalled, adding that he didn't allow Mallya to proceed with the conversation as he had been briefed about his earlier “bluff offers”.
“I curtly told him “there was no point talking to me & he must make offers to his bankers”,” the minister said, underscoring that he had never given an appointment to Mallya after 2014.
Arun Jaitley’s rebuttal comes hours after Mallya’s claim that he had met the minister before leaving the country in 2016 triggered a political firestorm.
The opposition quickly interpreted the statement to imply collusion between the govt & the business tycoon.
Vijay Mallya, 62, is wanted in India for defaulting on loans worth crores & money. The liquor baron who founded the now-defunct Kingfisher Airlines, fled to the UK in 2016 when a group of banks launched efforts to recover around ₹9,000 crore from him.
Outside the Westminster Magistrate’s court where he's fighting India’s request to the UK, Vijay Mallya said he left the country for Geneva for a scheduled meeting & wasn’t escaping the law.
Inside, the embattled businessman has repeatedly disputed the fraud allegations & claimed that it was the govt’s decision to seize his assets that prevented him from settling the loan.
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