Giving a stern message to corporate tycoons who have wilfully avoided paying their dues to banks, the government on Thursday asserted that it has given clear directions to banks to “go all out” to recover their dues.
Parliament saw uproarious scenes over Vijay Mallya fleeing the country when his defunct airline owed ₹9,091.40 crore to various banks.
Responding to Congress leader Mallikarjun Kharge’s attack on the government on the Mallya issue, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley told the Lok Sabha that banks are going to take every possible action to recover not only from “him (Mallya) but many other wilful defaulters”.
“Instead of paying up the money, Mallya has fled to London. He was allowed to go on March 2. Some action should be taken in this regard. Why has SBI not taken any action against Vijay Mallya and why was his passport not impounded when the CBI had initiated a criminal case,” said Kharge.
Govt blames UPA Jaitley reeled out the timelines involved when credit facilities were extended by banks to Kingfisher Airlines. “First sanction for this account happened in September 2004. Second additional amount came on February 7, 2008. The account was declared non-performing on April 30, 2009. Again restructuring was done on December 21, 2010. These dates speak for themselves,” said Jaitley. Soon after Jaitley’s response, the Congress MPs led by Party President Sonia Gandhi staged a walkout from the lower house. Later, Congress Vice-President Rahul Gandhi told reporters that Jaitley gave a lengthy speech, but did not answer as to why the government “let Vijay Mallya run away with ₹9,000 crore”.
Jaitley — during a briefing on cabinet decisions — made a jibe at Rahul Gandhi, stating that there was a big difference between Mallya’s departure from the country and Ottavio Quattrocchi’s ‘escape’ to Switzerland. “Let the bankers take all steps to recover their money. If somebody is responsible for inaction... or any other matter of this kind, we will certainly look into that and take appropriate action”, he added.