Kingfisher Airlines Chairman Vijay Mallya’s affidavit filed in the Supreme Court (“ >Banks have no right to know my assets: Mallya ”, April 22) makes it amply clear that he is in no mood to repay his debts any time soon. His aggressive tone could well be a ploy to buy more time. The businessman should stop finding fault and understand that the money he has borrowed from Indian banks belongs to the common man. His drawing an analogy with Air India, a government undertaking, is also a dubious move to escape scrutiny. The liquor baron should stop playing the victim card.
J. Anantha Padmanabhan,
Tiruchi
The businessman’s antics remind me of another scandal in the 1960s — the Jayanti Shipping scam — which involved businessman Dharma Jayanti Teja. Teja was projected as a successful NRI who had worked his way up from scratch and he was known to throw lavish parties which soon helped him gain access to the corridors of power. Teja projected his desire to do something for the country which was in the form of expanding India’s maritime fleet; he managed to swing a deal with financial backing from the government. Authorities soon discovered that he was siphoning off money to his own account, after which he fled the country. The public sector Shipping Corporation of India had to take over Jayanti Shipping.
T.M. Ranganathan,
Srirangam, Tamil Nadu
It is common knowledge that while the big sharks will never be netted, it’s the minnows that will be made to suffer. It is baffling how various banks vied with one another and sanctioned huge loans to Vijay Mallya. Did the managements go by the rules and regulations? Is it so difficult to bring him back from the U.K.? The stoic silence of the Prime Minister and the Finance Minister is intriguing especially when the issue of bad loans is now a current topic.
Mani Natraajan,
Noida, Uttar Pradesh
The way Vijay Mallya is browbeating his Indian lenders smacks of arrogance and he seems to be under the illusion that he can get away with it. When I began my banking career 42 years ago, I was taught to look for three Cs in a borrower while evaluating his credit proposal — capital, capacity and character. I wonder whether our bankers, now crying over spilt milk, assessed him with this prism.
Sivamani Vasudevan,
Chennai
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