India’s security establishment is efficient and alert enough to ensure that an ordinary Greenpeace activist is not allowed to leave the country for a conference in London. The activist was easily identified and prevented from boarding a flight. Yet the same security establishment allows Vijay Mallya, the flamboyant and politically-powerful liquor baron, to leave the country quietly even as the CBI and Enforcement Directorate (ED) are pursuing him in a case of wilful default relating to the non-payment of loans worth 9000 crore rupees to over a dozen Indian banks. The CBI and ED are also probing a loan of 950 crore rupees sanctioned to Mallya’s Kingfisher Airlines, part of which has allegedly been taken out of the country illegally. In the midst of active investigations, Mallya managed to leave the country with effortless ease.
This could not have happened unless those in power looked the other way. Shockingly, Mallya left India on a Jet Airways flight with nearly a dozen baggage items on March 2, which is also the day when the banks moved a special debt recovery court seeking an arrest warrant against him. The banks, suspecting Mallya may flee the country, asked for his passport to be seized. Is this a mere coincidence?
Both Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Finance Minister Arun Jaitley have repeatedly claimed that the BJP-led NDA regime is free of corruption. But many would argue that the manner and circumstances in which Mallya left the country constitute an act of corruption.
10/03/16 MK Venu/The Wire
To Read the News in full at Source, Click the Headline
This could not have happened unless those in power looked the other way. Shockingly, Mallya left India on a Jet Airways flight with nearly a dozen baggage items on March 2, which is also the day when the banks moved a special debt recovery court seeking an arrest warrant against him. The banks, suspecting Mallya may flee the country, asked for his passport to be seized. Is this a mere coincidence?
Both Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Finance Minister Arun Jaitley have repeatedly claimed that the BJP-led NDA regime is free of corruption. But many would argue that the manner and circumstances in which Mallya left the country constitute an act of corruption.
10/03/16 MK Venu/The Wire
