Vijay Mallya, chairman of a sick unit named Kingfisher has now been ordered to get his Diplomat Passport cancelled by the Ministry of External Affairs. This is relation with the huge money laundering scam whose leading actor was played by Mallya. The famous businessman with his ill-deeds in the money areas now owes Rs 9000 crores to many public and private banks.
One tweet by ED’s official Twitter handle said “Passport of Vijay Mallya suspended by the government of India on request of enforcement directorate,”
The ED took such a measure mainly because Mallya has tried every non-cooperative step in this matter of money laundering, which hindered the current investigations being done by the agencies. He also failed to appear before the probe agency on April 9, despite being summoned three times by the ED under the stringent Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA). Henceforth on 13th April, the ED sought annulment of Mallya’s diplomatic passport by the Regional Passport Office.
As the media needed more solid confirmation than just a tweet, Vikas Swarup, a MEA spokesperson said, “On the advice of the ED, the Passport Issuing Authority in the MEA has today suspended the validity of Vijay Mallya’s diplomatic passport with immediate effect for a period of 4 weeks, under Section 10 A of the Passports Act, 1967. Mallya has been asked to respond within one week as to why his passport should not be impounded or revoked under section 10(3)(c) of the Passports Act, 1967. If he fails to respond within the stipulated time, it will be assumed that he has no response to offer and the MEA will go ahead with the revocation.”
The ED has further issued fresh summons to Mallya after he sought two extensions from the earlier dates of March 18 and April 2, citing official reasons.
