 "Rahul Gandhi")
Congress leaders, led by its vice-president Rahul Gandhi, on Thursday alleged a "criminal conspiracy" in the government's failure to stop Vijay Mallya from leaving Indian shores.
Finance Minister Arun Jaitley rebutted the Congress charge by reminding the party of Ottavio Quattrocchi's escape from India, an accused in the Bofors case. He also questioned how Mallya was extended loans by public sector banks during the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA)'s rule. Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) said Mallya was a "sin of the Congress".
Rahul Gandhi raked up the issue in the Lok Sabha, while opposition leader Ghulam Nabi Azad launched an attack on the government in the Rajya Sabha.
The Congress vice-president said the government has allowed somebody like Mallya to leave the country while failing to bring back 'black money' stashed in foreign banks and deposit Rs 15 lakh in each Indian's bank account as promised by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in the run up to last General Elections. Azad said the government had earlier failed to stop former Indian Premier League Commissioner Lalit Modi, being investigated by Enforcement Directorate, from leaving India.
Jaitley advised Rahul Gandhi to "study the Constitution once" and said there exists a legal process to stop anybody. He said Mallya perhaps anticipated that the banks were to move the Supreme Court and left. Jaitley said Rahul Gandhi should understand the basic difference between Mallya's and Quattrocchi's cases. He said that in Quattrocchi's case, the Central Bureau of Investigation had asked the then government to impound his passport, but this was not done. Quatrocchi left India in 1993, during the P V Narasimha Rao-led Congress government at the Centre. He said by the time Mallya left India, the banks had not initiated the legal process. "It would have been better had the banks done it earlier," he added.
The Finance Minister said loans to Mallya had become non-performing assets (NPAs) by 2009, but were restructured in 2010. On why Mallya remained a member of the Rajya Sabha even after the issuance of a lookout notice against him, Jaitley said there was a constitutional process involved to suspend the membership. He said there are clear instructions that every possible action should be pursued to recover Rs 9091 crore that Mallya owes to public sector banks.
The Congress, Nationalist Congress Party and Left parties staged a walkout alleging that the government's response was not satisfactory. In the Rajya Sabha, Congress MP Jairam Ramesh said evidence has surfaced that lawyers had advised banks on February 28 to file a petition in the apex court the next day to stop Mallya from leaving the country. Ramesh said the banks didn't file the case until March 5, but Mallya had left the country by March 2.
Meanwhile, sources in the Rajya Sabha secretariat clarified that a member needs to take permission of the House if he or she misses 10 sittings in a row. Mallya last attended the House on March 1, and if he continues to remain absent then his tenth sitting will fall on March 16, the last day of the first part of the Budget session. Mallya, if he continues to remain absent, will need to inform the office of the Rajya Sabha Chairman by the time the House meets again after the recess on April 25. However, the rules are not rigid on this. There have been instances like that of singer Lata Mangeshkar, who attended Rajya Sabha proceedings only once in her six year tenure from 1999 to 2005.
