TIL Desk/Business/London/ Liquor baron Vijay Mallya on Wednesday said he is not a fugitive and “always had honest intentions” to repay his loans. This comes after Mallya on Tuesday broke his silence over the controversy surrounding him of defaulting on bank loans to the tune of Rs 9000 crores, and said he had been falsely framed as the “poster boy of bank default and a lightning rod of public anger”.
Later, Minister of State for External Affairs MJ Akbar said: “If Vijay Mallya wanted to pay the banks he had many many years to do so.” In reply to Akbar, Mallya in a series posts on Twitter said: “My old friend MJ Akbar (now Hon’ble MOS) states that I had years to repay. My settlement initiatives date back to 2016. Most importantly the value of assets today in 2018 is far higher than in 2016.”
Mallya later cried foul and said he is being falsely accused in chargesheets by the Central Bureau of Investigation and the Enforcement Directorate. He wrote: “CBI and ED chargesheets specifically allege criminality with no intention to repay banks. Since 2016, I have been making efforts to settle. Now I have placed everything before the honourable Karnataka High Court. So where is the malafide? Are banks interested in repayment?”
