PTI
New Delhi: Amid a raging row over Vijay Mallya fleeing the country, Union finance minister Arun Jaitley Thursday said the banks will recover “every penny” of loans given to him and that the investigative agencies will take strong action against the liquor baron wherever he is found to have violated the law.
Mallya, the promoter of long-grounded Kingfisher Airlines, had left India March 2, presumably for London, days before Supreme Court heard a plea of a clutch of state-owned banks seeking recovery of over `9,000 crore from his group firms.
“… his (Mallya’s) facts are very clear. Every government agency, whether its taxation department or investigative agency, wherever he has violated law, is going to take strong action. As far as banks are concerned, they are going to recover every penny of the rupee that they can from him,” Jaitley said.
The minister was answering questions at India Today Conclave on what the government was doing to recover money from Mallya, who is currently in the UK. He also said the government has been trying to address the problem of NPAs in sectors like steel, textile, highways and infrastructure, which are on account of economic slowdown.
“NPAs due to sectoral slowdown would cease to be NPAs once there is an upturn,” he added. However, Jaitley said, the real source of worry was the cases involving “misconduct” on the part of individuals.
“There is a second category where large amounts of loans have been given in individual cases and some of the people misconducted themselves; there may not be adequate sureties and that is a source of worry… this is the one, which is the real cause of worry,” said Jaitley.
