State Bank of India on Thursday said banks were not lax in their attempts to recover their loan dues — amounting over ₹9,000 crore — from the defunct Kingfisher Airlines Ltd.
SBI, which is the leader of the 17 banks’ consortium, emphasised that it did all that was possible at its command to recover the dues from KFA.
The bank made this statement after reports emerged that it was lenient in its dealings with Mallya.
“To set the record straight”, India’s largest bank chronicled the legal steps, including moving the Debts Recovery Tribunal (Bengaluru) on February 26 (the same day that the deal between Diageo, United Spirits Ltd and Vijay Mallya was reported by the media) to advance the hearing (which was scheduled on March 8) related to KFA.
According to a SBI statement, the DRT advanced the hearing to February 29. Going by the advice of Senior Advocates that it will not be possible to directly approach the Supreme Court for seeking reliefs in respect of the deal, the bank filed four applications in DRT seeking various reliefs.
On March 2, SBI said the DRT heard arguments only on the application seeking garnishee relief (a third party which is asked through legal notice to surrender money to settle a debt or a claim) against Diageo and USL and posted the matter to March 4, 2016.
As the DRT did not grant any relief, State Bank of India filed a writ petition before the Karnataka High Court on March 3 and requested it to list it for hearing on March 4.
The bank’s statement said since no relief came forth from either the DRT or the High Court, the bank filed Special Leave Petition before the Supreme Court on March 8 seeking reliefs.
On March 9, The Supreme Court bench issued notice to Mallya, who left the country on March 2, through his company United Breweries Holdings Ltd; his counsel; the Indian High Commissioner to the UK, and via his Rajya Sabha e-mail address.