A Special Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) court yesterday refused to give any interim bail to five employees of IDBI Bank, and four employees of the now defunct airline, Kingfisher
Vijay Mallya; (right) Yogesh Agarwal, former IDBI chairman
A Special Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) court yesterday refused to give any interim bail to five employees of IDBI Bank, and four employees of the now defunct airline, Kingfisher. The CBI asked for judicial custody of the accused that include former IDBI Chairman Yogesh Agarwal, and ex-CFO of Kingfisher Airlines, A Raghunathan. The court sent the accused to judicial custody till February 7 and refused to give them bail. The CBI also filed a charge sheet against 11 people in the case. These include the nine arrested, Vijay Mallya, and Kingfisher Airlines as accused.
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In one of the sternest actions against Kingfisher Airlines till date, late on Monday night the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), Banking Securities and Fraud Cell, had arrested five current and former employees of IDBI Bank, its former Chairman Yogesh Agarwal, a resident of Gurgaon. The agency also arrested B K Batra who was then the head of corporate banking, O V Bundellu, ex-deputy managing director, S K V Srinivasan and R S Sridhar, both clerical employees of the bank. The CBI had also arrested former CFO of Kingfisher Airlines, A Raghunathan, Shailesh Borkar, Amit Nadkarni and Arvindkumar Shah.
Undue favours
According to the CBI allegations, the officials of IDBI showed undue favours while granting a loan and disbursement to Kingfisher Airlines Ltd. The CBI alleged that initially a Short Term Loan of R150 crore was given to the airline, later Rs 200 crore was again sanctioned, and later a corporate loan of R750 crore was given despite the weak financial condition, negative net-worth and low credit rating of the airline. The loans were given despite Kingfisher Airlines being a new client, and though it did not satisfy the norms stipulated in the Corporate Loan Policy of the bank.
The CBI also alleged in its remand application while arguing before special CBI Judge HS Mahajan, that significant portions of the disbursed facility were diverted to service existing debt with other banks by the airlines. Also, amounts were remitted out of India on the pretext of payment of lease rental and purchase of aircraft.
An amount of Rs 3.45 crore was put into the bank account of Kingfisher Airlines in London. All the applications were submitted by A Raghunathan, giving reference of Dr Vijay Mallya and CMD of IDBI Bank meetings.
All the loans later turned out to be non performing assets (NPA) for the bank, causing wrongful loss to the tune of R900 crore of public money argued CBI counsel Bharat Badami.
Badami also argued before Judge Mahajan that Mallya has already fled the country and a non-bailable warrant has been issued against him. The accused present are also very influential people and might tamper with the evidence, and influence the witnesses, so they should be sent to judicial custody.
Followed procedure
Amol Patankar who appeared for Yogesh Agarwal, the former chairman of IDBI, argued that all the procedures were followed while granting the loans to the airline. His client was framed in the case and every loan had a risk factor involved.
Shreyansh Mithare, Amit Desai and Aabad Ponda and Pranav Badheka who appeared for some of the accused, argued before the judge saying the investigations are already completed in the matter and a charge sheet was filed under Section 173 of the CrPC before the court yesterday. They said there is no need for any further judicial custody and the accused should be granted bail.
However judge Mahajan granted judicial custody to all nine accused till February 7 and kept the interim-bail application for hearing on January 30.
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