Vijay Mallya exposé: Did UPA era bureaucrat liason for Mallya with banks?

New Delhi: Newer claims have emerged about absconding liquor baron Vijay Mallya receiving undue favours from the Manmohan Singh-led UPA government .

As per the second Network18 exposé, Mallya had recieved help from a bureaucrat in the UPA government who went out of his way to liason for him.

Network18 report said that Amitabh Verma, then Joint Secretary (Banking Operations), facilitated meeting between Mallya and top banking bosses to aid him in getting funds for the now defunct Kingfisher Airlines.

Network18 has copies of letters which was written by Mallya to his executives. The news channel quoted exerpts of letters dated March 5, 2009 written by former CFO of Kingfisher A Raghunathan to Vijay Mallya.

Excerpts of the letter states, “dear sir, thanks to Amitabh Verma asistance we have managed to get PNB agree to release rs 150 crores...”

“...our proposal seeking credit limit/facilities for Rs 2000 crores AV confirmed that he has already spoken to three of the bank chairman namely SBI, BOB and BOI. OP Bhatt CMD of SBI has already informed him about the proposed meeting which SBI wants with the other three banks. However I have requested AV that we should have this meeting after he has spoken to the CMD of PNB...”

“...regarding our request for the release fo funds he is of the opinion that the banker meeting should take place first. Then only we should look at asking for interim release of funds”.

Network18 gave another excerpt from the letter which was written to Mallya on March 26, 2009 by CFO at UB Group Ravi Nedungadi, “Amitabh called me to ask how the SBI meeting went. I emphasised the urgency and Amitabh said that he had spoken to Mr. Bhatt and that his ad hoc disbursement would happen. As regards PNB, Amitabh said that we should submit the same proposal to them and only hint that we have submitted to SBI...”

Mallya's defunct Kingfisher Airlines owes more than Rs 9,000 crore to various banks.

The absconding liquor baron, who left the country on March 2 last year and is now in the UK, has been declared Proclaimed Offender by a special PMLA court in Mumbai on a plea of Enforcement Directorate in connection with its money laundering probe against him in the alleged bank loan default case.