Businessman and Politician
- NAME: Vijay Vittal Mallya
- BORN: 18 December 1955
- ALMA MATER: La Martiniere, Calcutta | St. Xavier’s College, Kolkata
- OCCUPATION: Businessman, Politician
- POLITICAL CAREER: Mallya joined Janata Party in 2003 and was its National Working President till 2010.
- Vijay Mallya is Indian Businessman. He was elected to the Rajya Sabha as independent member twice from his home state of Karnataka, first in 2002 with the support of the Janata Dal (Secular) and Indian National Congress and then in 2010 with the support of the Janata Dal (Secular) and BJP. On 2 May 2016, Mallya resigned from his post as a Rajya Sabha MP, a week after the Rajya Sabha ethics panel declared that he should no longer be a member of the House and one day before the panel was set to meet again to recommend his expulsion.
- BUSINESS CAREER:
- Chairman of United Breweries Group
- Ex-Chairman of United Spirits
- Former Chairman of Sanofi India
- Former Chairman of Bayer CropScience
Vijay Mallya started his airlines called “Kingfisher” in the year 2005. He later on acquired Air Deccan in order to expand the airline business. Despite its success, Kingfisher was consistently making losses since its inception. The shareholders kept waiting for their first dividends. In the year 2011, the airline first declared that it had cash flow issues. Due to this paucity of cash flows, the company started taking heavy loans. By 2012, Kingfisher Airlines was declared as an NPA by SBI. Finally, the grounding of Kingfisher Airlines in 2012 and the cancellation of its license in December 2012 put an end to the Kingfisher journey.
Loans associated with Kingfisher amounted to Rs. 7000 crores. There has also been controversy when it comes to the means used and collateral placed to acquire these loans. BOI had given a loan of 300 crores to Vijay Mallya on items like office stationery, boarding pass printers, and folding chairs as collateral. The banks’ willingness to provide loans based on Current assets as capital created suspicion on the bank officials. The loans given by SBI were on the trademarks and Goodwill of Kingfisher airlines kept as collateral. These trademarks which were worth over Rs. 4000 crores in 2009 have now plummeted to not more than Rs. 6 crores.
There have been allegations that the loans taken by Vijay Mallya were only to further his personal agenda. These allegations claim that the loans taken by Vijay Mallya were laundered overseas to various tax havens. This was done with the help of shell companies.
As part of the Kingfisher collapse, Mallya is accused of being a “wilful defaulter” under Indian law, including accusations of money laundering, misappropriation, etc.
In March 2016, a consortium of banks approached the Supreme Court of India to stop Mallya from going abroad due to the pending money his companies owed them. As per media reports, he had already left India. Vijay Mallya has also made an offer to banks where he would pay them Rs. 4,000 crores in order to settle all his accounts. But as per the news reports lenders together have decided that they need a minimum of Rs.4900 crores to be paid up front.
In December of 2018, a European court ruled that he can be extradited to India to face fraud investigations. In July 2019, Mallya was granted permission to appeal to London’s High Court against his extradition. In April 2020, the plea file by Vijay Mallya against his extradition to India was rejected by London High court. Mallya had filed an appeal in the UK Supreme Court earlier in month of May 2020, however, the same was rejected in May itself. Nonetheless, in the beginning of June, UK government stated that there is a legal issue that needs to be resolved before his extradition can be arranged, extradition cannot take place until it is resolved. The UK government stated that the issue is confidential and they cannot go into any detail.