Mallya loan default case: Bail applications of IDBI, KFA adjourned till Feb. 7

Mumbai [Maharashtra], Feb. 4(ANI): Mumbai's Special CBI court on Saturday adjourned the bail applications of IDBI and Kingfisher Airline (KFA) employees in the Vijay Mallya loan default case till February 7. The 11 people arrested in this case by the CBI on January 23 are in judicial custody till January 7. The CBI had filed charge sheet against all accused on the same day when they were produced before the court for the remand process, on January 24. The battery of lawyers while arguing for the bail of IDBI employees, said, "Even Before KFA approached to Consortium of Banks (of which IDBI is a part) for loans, it was already given loans of Rs. 4998.5 crore. Not only IDBI but all other banks have also given him loans amounting to 7000 crore in totality. This was not the case that loans were given based on low credit ratings to KFA only, but consortium of banks was looking into helping the whole aviation industry seeing their condition of that time." The defence also raised questions about the intention of the CBI while arresting all accused just a day prior to the chargesheet. Defence lawyers also said, "They alleged CBI of just trying to make a positive perception about it (CBI) in public that it is not sitting idle on this investigation so they unnecessarily arrested these people when investigation was over." The CBI has already opposed their bail pleas filing reply to these petitions, as CBI's lawyer Bharat Badami sought time till February 7 for his arguments on the bail applications of these accused. The CBI has alleged that former IDBI chairman approved the loans and also instructed to expedite the ratings while finalising the loans to Kingfisher Airlines of over 900 crore rupees. The loan was allegedly sanctioned in violation of norms regarding credit limits. Those arrested include by the CBI are former Chairman of IDBI Bank Yogesh Aggarwal and former CFO of now-defunct Kingfisher Airlines A Raghunathan. The IDBI bank executives arrested are O V Bundellu, S K V Srinivasan and R S Sridhar while the three former executives of Kingfisher Airlines arrested are Shailesh Borke, A C Shah and Amit Nadkarni. The arrests have been made from multiple cities. While Raghunathan was arrested in Mumbai, Aggarwal was taken into custody from Gurgaon. The arrests were followed by searches at 11 places including Mallya's residence in New Delhi, three floors of UB towers in Bengaluru and residences of Aggarwal and Raghunathan among others.(ANI)