Arun Jaitley rejects Vijay Mallya's claim, says never met him

London: Finance minister Arun Jaitley rebutted Vijay Mallya’s statement about a meeting between the two in Delhi where the finance minister was alleged to have been apprised about Mallya’s offer to banks just before the former liquor baron left for London. Jaitley also accused Mallya of misusing his privileges as a Rajya Sabha member forcing the former liquor baron to walk back some of his earlier comments and claim media sensationalism.

“It was an innocent statement I made to journalists,” Mallya told reporters outside the court in London on Wednesday when informed about Jaitley’s rebuttal.

“I had met Jaitley many times in Parliament and I had told him I was leaving. I was willing to settle. There was no formal conversation on the topic as such,” he added.


Mallya left for London in 2016 and has refused to return to India to face a litany of charges that include money laundering and misuse of bank funds. The Indian government has asked for Mallya to be extradited and a court in London, which has been hearing the case for some time now, has set December 10 as the date for the verdict.

The controversy erupted on Wednesday afternoon when Mallya claimed outside a courthouse in London that he had met and apprised Jaitley about his settlement offer with banks just before he left the country.

‘Ready to Pay Back Money But Subjected to a Witch Hunt’
Mallya’s departure and his subsequent refusal to return has embarrassed the government with the opposition alleging that he was tipped off about an application to impound his passport.

“I left because I had a scheduled meeting in Geneva,” Mallya said. “I met the finance minister before I left, repeated my offer to settle with the banks. That is the truth,” he told reporters in London.

Jaitley refuted this statement saying he had never given Mallya an appointment after 2014 and the liquor baron had misused his position as a Rajya Sabha MP to talk to him in Parliament. Jaitley said Mallya’s statement was “factually false” and “does not reflect truth”. “He misused that privilege on one occasion while I was walking out of the House to go to my room,” Jaitley said in a Facebook post. “He paced up to catch up with me and while walking uttered a sentence that 'I am making an offer of settlement'.”

“Having been fully briefed about his earlier ‘bluff offers’, without allowing him to proceed with the conversation, I curtly told him ‘there was no point talking to me and he must make offers to his bankers’,” Jaitley said. The finance minister said he did not even “receive” the papers that he was holding in his hand. “Besides this one sentence exchange where he misused his privilege as a Rajya Sabha member, in order to further his commercial interest as a bank debtor, there is no question of my having ever given him an appointment to meet me,” he added.

Meanwhile, the Westminster Magistrate Court heard both the parties in the extradition case with Mallya sitting alone in a glass chamber listening intently to the lawyers’ argument.

During the lunch break, Mallya told ETthat he had placed Rs 13,966 crore worth of shares before the Karnataka High Court and asked them to liquidate the assets. “These were assets that could be easily liquidated and money recovered. But the banks have opposed it.”

Mallya further said he was ready to pay back the sum but he was being subjected to a witch hunt. Mallya added that he had put hundreds of crores of his personal money in Kingfisher Airlines but the economic circumstances turned the airlines into an unviable project: high fuel costs, taxes, tough pricing — all played a part.

The counsel for the Indian government, Mark Summers, said that loans taken by Kingfisher Airlines from IDBI and SBI were not used by the airlines and that the RBI has documented that. The loans should have been used to pay creditors but in some cases were used by promoters to fund his racing team and personal jet, the counsel alleged. “It’s the default of these loans that Mallya is trying to avoid the consequences of. There is overwhelming evidence that Mallya didn’t want to repay the loans,” he said.

Earlier, the judge reviewed a video of Mumbai’s Arthur Road jail cell presented by Indian authorities.

She stated she had watched the jail video submitted by the Indian government three times.

Mallya’s counsel Clare Montgomery said there is a problem in the way the government of India was presenting the case. “We have gone through a number of allegations which were later retracted by the Indian authorities,” she said.

Montgomery said the case has shrunk and GoI has shifted its stand both prima facie and in specificity.

It looks like a case of ‘conditional conspiracy’, she added.

Mallya’s counsel argued there was no evidence that Kingfisher Airlines kept its affairs secret and the emails with banks clearly showed that the banks were informed.

The losses were clearly recorded in the audited results and the networth was negative, she added. Montgomery countered all GoI allegations on misrepresenting of statements, personal guarantees, misuse of funds, saying the proof provided wasn’t enough to convince even a jury.