ED summons 5 IDBI Bank officials, Kingfisher Airlines executives
Five present and past officials of IDBI Bank and a few executives of Kingfisher Airlines have been summoned by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) in connection with aRs 950-crore loan the bank sanctioned to the airline in 2009.
Confirming the summons, a senior official of ED told Business Standard: “All of them have been given two days to depose at our Mumbai office,” he said.
Sources said summons had been sent to Yogesh Agarwal, the former chairman and managing director of IDBI Bank, and four other officials — BK Batra, OV Bundellu, R Bansal and SKV Srinivasan, who were key members of the credit committee.
Apart from them, A Raghunathan, chief financial officer (CFO) of the airline, and a few executives have also been summoned.
The probe agency will question the bank officials with regards to their roles in sanctioning the loan to the defunct airline. Raghunathan role is be also examined with respect to a slew of meetings between Vijay Mallya and the bank officials, on the basis of which he asked banks to sanction the loan in 2009.
The ED recently filed a case against Mallya, Kingfisher Airlines and IDBI Bank officials under anti-money laundering laws. It will also investigate the diversion of a sizable chunk of funds, which was used for foreign remittances towards lease rentals, purchase of aircraft parts etc.
