15 March 2016, New Delhi: The Social Democratic Party of India, (SDPI), has lashed out at the Narendra Modi-led NDA Government for allegedly facilitating liquor baron Vijay Mallya, who is facing legal proceedings for alleged loan defaults by his group to the tune of over Rs.9000/- crore, to flee India. It is collusive criminality of the government agencies to allow Mallya hoodwink the law and run away, the party said.

SDPI national secretary Afsar Pasha in a statement said that Mallya is the icon of Modi’s collusion with white collar criminals. It proves their willingness to compromise Indian economy for the benefit of these criminals in the fond hope that these fellows will create jobs, but these fellows make use of his “Fair & Lovely Schemes” only to invest in real estate & bullion markets.

Pasha questioned why was Mallya allowed to flee by changing a CBI lookout notice and under whose direction, if not for Modi. The original lookout notice by the CBI wanted immigration authorities to detain the multi-million loan defaulter if he tried to leave the country. That notice was issued in
October 2015. Then in a stunning U-turn a month later on November 23, the notice was modified to say that his detention was not required. People are not a party to his debt agreement with the banks. Those who think that he left India without the knowledge of bank officials and the government are naive. This could not have happened unless those in power looked the other way.

He said that for nearly 5 years Mallya was defaulting the statutory payments like TDS, PF etc. which were deducted from the salaries of the employees & the erstwhile Congress-led UPA govt never raised any question. Mallya being a defaulter of huge public money who lives a mega rich life style, has multi-million dollar homes across the globe, and yet claims to be bankrupt. So, be it BJP or Congress both are guilty of being hands-in-gloves with Mallya in his nefarious activities. But the Congress accusing the BJP Government of helping him flee was akin to the pot calling the kettle black.
Pasha said that Mallya showed zero debt in Rajya Sabha affidavit. However, filing a false affidavit is a criminal offence in IPC and this person is a Member of Parliament for the last 12 years. The Union Government’s hypocrisy got exposed when it falsely claimed they can’t stop Mallya leaving without court order despite CBI/ED cases! Yet they had stopped Green Peace activist Priya Pillai without court order & cases! She had been off loaded from London bound flight in January 2015.

The statement stated that overall it shows large favours have been shown to Mallya violating all necessary controls. The bank officials acted beyond their scope have to be strictly punished. It must be probed if any politicians have helped him. It is unfair to make Mallya alone a scapegoat but all defaulters have to be brought to book. Banks must act now itself on all other defaulter before they also flee the country. Some law need to be passed to prevent accused persons from travelling abroad, if some serious probes are underway.

Pasha pointed out that both Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Finance Minister Arun Jaitley have repeatedly claimed that the BJP-led NDA regime is free of corruption. But many would argue that the manner and circumstances in which Mallya left the country constitute an act of corruption. The BJP is trying to take the moral high-ground over the issue of corruption by claiming the big loan defaults of leading business houses are a legacy handed down by the previous Congress-led government. This is true, but the NDA Govt. is equally on test for the way it handles these cases. The NDA will have to demonstrate that it will walk its big talk against systemic corruption. But the manner in which Mallya left the country does not augur well for the BJP’s anti-corruption stance.