Vijay Mallya diverted loan funds to Formula 1 team and firm that owned IPL team, alleges ED
The Enforcement Directorate also accused the businessman of not fully disclosing his assets while executing a personal guarantee agreement with lenders in 2010.
The Enforcement Directorate has alleged that businessman Vijay Mallya and two of his companies diverted Rs 3,547 crore of the Rs 9,990-crore loan they took from a consortium of 17 banks to the Force India Formula 1 Team, a motorsport firm based in the United Kingdom, and a firm that owned Indian Premier League team Royal Challengers Bangalore, The Indian Express reported on Tuesday.
The agency made the allegations in its second chargesheet against Mallya, United Breweries Holdings and the now-defunct Kingfisher Airlines in a special court on Monday.
The agency listed five instances of diversion of loans by Kingfisher Airlines – payment of Rs 3,432.4 crore by “over invoicing” lease rentals of aircraft between April 2008 and March 2012, diversion of Rs 45.42 crore “for making payment towards the rental lease” of a corporate jet used “exclusively” by Mallya, redirecting Rs 50.9 crore to Force India, diversion of Rs 15.9 crore to the firm that owned Royal Challengers Bangalore, and payment of Rs 2.8 crore to ICICI Bank as repayment of an earlier loan.
The agency also accused Mallya of not fully disclosing his assets while executing a personal guarantee agreement with the lenders when Kingfisher Airlines’ loans were restructured in December 2010. The agency said Mallya had claimed at the time that he had assets worth Rs 1,395 crore, whereas according to its estimates his total assets were Rs 3,164.65 crore.
The agency alleged Mallya had “amassed huge properties outside India, especially in United Kingdom, USA, France and other countries” and “has got interest in various companies which are created/ incorporated outside India”.
The chargesheet also accused United Breweries Holding of helping the businessman launder money by not honouring a corporate guarantee that the company gave to the banks, which was to be invoked in case of a loan default by Kingfisher Airlines.
“The State Bank of India, which is the consortium leader, has calculated the amount [of the loan] to the tune of Rs 9,990.07 crore [including applied interest] as on May 15, 2018,” the agency said in the chargesheet.
The agency filed its first chargesheet against Mallya in June 2017 in the Rs 900-crore IDBI Bank-Kingfisher Airlines loan-default case. It has attached assets worth Rs 9,890 crore in the case so far.