Embattled Liquor tycoon Vijay Mallya 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 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 offences under the PMLA (Prevention of Money Laundering Act) that the Enforcement Directorate should suo moto attach my assets, he said.
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.
Asked about heading back to India, he noted: I should be where my family is, where my interests are.
If the CBI and the ED are going to be reasonable, its a different story. What all they are doing to me for the last four years is totally unreasonable.
Mallya remains on bail since his arrest on an extradition warrant in April 2017 involving a bond worth 650,000 pounds and other restrictions on his travel while he contests that ruling.
