In its latest chargesheet filed against Vijay Mallya, the Enforcement Directorate of India has alleged that the businessman floated 20 shell companies, directors of which were either his personal staff or retired employees. In its chargesheet, it said, “Mallya was holding directly or indirectly movable assets, in the form of shares of public listed companies, by way of creating a web of shell companies. The assets were being in shell/dummy companies created by Mallya.”
Filed in Mumbai last week, the over 5,000 page chargesheet with 57 pages of the main report and rest annexures, said Mallya had “formed a complex web structure of his group companies so as to directly control their affairs.” It added, “He has nominated directors in those companies who were either his personal staff, retired company official or a third person.” ED identified the alleged shell firms as M/s PE Data Centre Resources Private Limited, M/s Pharma Trading Limited, M/s Kingfisher Finvest Limited, Devi Investment Private Limited, M/s Mallya Investment Private Limited, M/s Explicit Consultancy Private Limited, M/s Ambitious Computech Private Limited and Vilora Consultancy Private Limited among others.
The agency is currently trying to confiscate a coffee estate in Coorg in Karnataka and other assets in Bengaluru which it had attached under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act as it did with a £ 10 million farm house in Maharashtra's Alibaug recently. A criminal case had been registered by the ED in the deal last year.
“There were encumbered (free of debt) properties of more than £176 million in addition to the properties mentioned in the personal guarantee submitted by Mallya to the IDBI bank,” the Ed said, indicating that the assets were not pledged as collaterals towards security of the bank loan. Nine people have been named, including Mallya and senior employees and executives of the now-defunct airline and the IDBI.
The agency is going to file a request to extradite the fugitive liquor baron from the UK. A senior officer said, “Now that the chargesheet has been filed against Mallya, we will soon file an affidavit in court and then apply for his extradition through diplomatic channels.”
