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Business News/ Companies / People/  Vijay Mallya’s resignation rejected by Rajya Sabha chairman
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Vijay Mallya’s resignation rejected by Rajya Sabha chairman

Vijay Mallya questions why he is being called a defaulter inspite of making a settlement offer to banks

Mallya has also contested the Rs9,000 crore demanded by lenders, terming the sum “inflated”. Photo: Hindustan TimesPremium
Mallya has also contested the Rs9,000 crore demanded by lenders, terming the sum “inflated”. Photo: Hindustan Times

Mumbai: Embattled liquor baron Vijay Mallya on Tuesday questioned why he is being considered a defaulter despite his settlement offer to lenders even as the Rajya Sabha chairman rejected his resignation from the Upper House of Parliament on procedural grounds.

“Agree Kingfisher Air owes money to banks. I am neither a borrower or a judgement debtor. Why am I a defaulter inspite of a settlement offer?," UB Group chairman Mallya wrote on Twitter. “In all humility and not in defiance as they report, I would like Indian media to check and verify facts before calling me a defaulter," Mallya added.

Mallya’s comments come a day after he resigned from Rajya Sabha, telling chairman Hamid Ansari in a letter that he does not expect to get “a fair trial or justice." Ansari rejected Mallya’s resignation on procedural grounds, Press Trust of India reported. The letter flouts the norms it does not bear his original signature, PTI quoted the Rajya Sabha secretary general as saying.

A panel of lawmakers have initiated a process to expel the businessman from Parliament. On 25 April, the ethics committee of the Rajya Sabha gave Mallya a week to explain his conduct in the default on bank loans in excess of Rs9,000 crore extended to his Kingfisher Airlines Ltd. The government had earlier revoked Mallya’s diplomatic passport in an effort to get the businessman to return to India.

Mallya flew to the UK on 2 March as creditor banks closed in on him by filing fresh Interlocutory Applications in the Debt Recovery Tribunal in Bengaluru seeking his arrest and seizure of his passport among other steps.

Also Read: I won’t get a fair trial, says Vijay Mallya in Rajya Sabha resignation letter

As the case reached the Supreme Court, Mallya made a settlement offer of Rs.4,000 crore to lenders. However, lenders had declined the offer.

“We have always been in dialogue with banks, saying: ‘We wish to settle’. But we wish to settle at a reasonable number that we can afford and banks can justify on the basis of settlements done before," Mallya told the Financial Times in an four-hour interview that was published on 29 April.

Mallya added that bankers are fearful of taking any haircut on their loans in the face of the public frenzy whipped up against him in India. However, the business tycoon cautioned: “By taking my passport or arresting me, they are not getting any money." Mallya told the newspaper that he has no plans to leave the UK, where he says he is in “forced exile".

Mallya has also contested the Rs9,000 crore demanded by lenders, terming the sum “inflated".

In a letter to Karan Singh, chairman, Committee on Ethics, Rajya Sabha, dated 2 May, Mallya said “there is no crystallized liability/debt finally determined by a court of competent jurisdiction to be due from me to the consortium of banks."

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Published: 03 May 2016, 07:28 PM IST
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