Banks will recover every penny given to Vijay Mallya, says Arun Jaitley
Finance Minister Arun Jaitey said investigative agencies will take strong action against the liquor baron wherever he is found to have violated the law.
Finance Minister Arun Jaitley on Thursday (Mar 17) said the banks will recover every penny of loan given to him. Jaitey, who was speaking at an event in New Delhi, said investigative agencies will take strong action against the liquor baron wherever he is found to have violated the law. Mallya, who has been declared a wilful defaulter, owes banks over Rs 9,000 crore.
“… his (Mallya’s) facts are very clear. Every government agency, whether its taxation department or investigative agency, wherever he has violated law, is going to take strong action. As far as banks are concerned, they are going to recover every penny of the rupee that they can from him,” Jaitley said.
Vijay Mallya case is pending in court and every govt agency is going to take strong action wherever he has violated the law, Jaitley said.
He also said the government has been trying to address the problem of NPAs in sectors like steel, textile, highways and infrastructure, which are on account of economic slowdown.
“NPAs due to sectoral slowdown would cease to be NPAs once there is an upturn,” he added.
However, Jaitley said, the real source of worry was the cases involving “misconduct” on the part of individuals.
“There is a second category where large amounts of loans have been given in individual cases and some of the people misconducted themselves, there may not be adequate sureties and that’s a source of worry… this is the one, which is real cause of worry because there are moral and ethical issues without legal liability
“The kind of example (Mallya case)… has brought a huge bad name to both to India’s banking as also to India’s private sector. It’s dangerous for the future if (we) are not able to remedy this,” he said.
He further said the immediate job of the government was to make sure public sector banks remained strong. “So I am trying to recapitalise banks.”
Every penny from Mallya will be recovered
