{"id":354141,"date":"2025-06-07T05:35:37","date_gmt":"2025-06-07T11:05:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/?p=354141"},"modified":"2025-06-07T05:35:39","modified_gmt":"2025-06-07T11:05:39","slug":"indias-runaway-billionaires-mallya-gives-fresh-life-to-controversy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/indias-runaway-billionaires-mallya-gives-fresh-life-to-controversy\/","title":{"rendered":"India\u2019s runaway billionaires–Mallya gives fresh life to controversy\u00a0"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Why late FM Arun Jaitley was trending on social media<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Recounting in a podcast that he informed the then Finance Minister Arun Jaitley before flying out of India to London in March 2016, fugitive liquor tycoon Vijay Mallya has given the Opposition one more opportunity to corner the ruling BJP and\u00a0 the\u00a0Narendra Modi government in the upcoming Monsoon Session of Parliament.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When Mallya had told reporters outside a London court that was hearing arguments over his extradition to India in 2018 that he met Jaitley and \u201crepeated my offer to settle with the banks\u201d, the late Finance Minister rubbished the claims in a strongly worded social media post  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Explaining in detail how Mallya as a member of Rajya Sabha uttered one sentence that \u201cI am making an offer of settlement\u201d, Jaitley wrote that the lone encounter did not last for more than a few minutes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Since 2014, I have never given him any appointment to meet me and the question of his having met me does not arise. However, since he was a Member of Rajya Sabha and he occasionally attended the House, he misused that privilege on one occasion while I was walking out of the House to go to my room,” Jaitley had said..<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mallya\u2019s statement has now reignited the political debate around the issue, while giving a fresh lease of life to controversy on India\u2019s runaway business tycoons who managed to flee despite being under investigation, the late BJP leader trend on the social media .<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Modi government has been under attack over businessmen involved in multimillion dollar scams\u2014Nirav Modi, Mehul Choksi and Vijay Mallya\u2014who managed to flee the country, allegedly because of failure of probe agencies to arrest them at the proper time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Accused of embezzling funds from the state-owned Punjab National Bank, Choksi and nephew Nirav Modi fled India in January 2018 just days before details of the scandal broke.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mallya claimed in the podcast with Raj Shamani that he was not aware of any action against him, being downgraded etc.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

 \u201cI told FM Arun Jaitley before leaving for the airport and then I flew from Delhi to London on the way to Geneva for a meeting which was fixed months ago. I told the then finance minister because I went from Parliament to Delhi airport. When this news hit the media, once again, it created a storm. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

“People went running to Mr Jaitley. He denied meeting me. A Congress MP saw us and then said to the media \u2018No, I saw them together\u2019. Mr Jaitley had to retract his statement and say \u2018Yes, yes I met him but only while walking \u2014 it was a fleeting meeting,” Mallya was quoted as saying <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Congress leaders were quick to take jibes at the saffron party and its government over the issue. \u201cForeign Minister attacks Pakistan by telling them. Bank fugitives flee the country after informing the Finance Minister. Narendra\u2019s entire system turned out to be surrendered,\u201d Congress leader Pawan Khera wrote on ‘X’<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jaitley, in 2016,  had said: \u201c He (Mallya) paced up to catch up with me and while walking uttered a sentence that \u201cI am making an offer of settlement\u201d. Having been fully briefed about his earlier \u201cbluff offers\u201d, without allowing him to proceed with the conversation, I curtly told him \u201cthere was no point talking to me and he must make offers to his bankers.\u201d I did not even receive the papers that he was holding in his hand.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cBesides this one sentence exchange where he misused his privilege as a Rajya Sabha Member, in order to further his commercial interest as a bank debtor, there is no question of my having ever given him an appointment to meet me,\u201d Jaitley had said in his post.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Why late FM Arun Jaitley was trending on social media Recounting in a podcast that he informed the then Finance Minister Arun Jaitley before flying out of India to London in March 2016, fugitive liquor tycoon Vijay Mallya has given the Opposition one more opportunity to corner the ruling BJP and\u00a0 the\u00a0Narendra Modi government in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":187,"featured_media":354142,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1801],"tags":[19761,19726,19762],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/posts\/354141"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/users\/187"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=354141"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/posts\/354141\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":354143,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/posts\/354141\/revisions\/354143"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/media\/354142"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=354141"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=354141"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=354141"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}