For Kingfisher businessman Vijay Mallya, it seems that the clouds of despair will take a lot more time to dissipate and move away to some other place. Their fondness for Vijay Mallya can be noticed by every Indian. Because the way every news which spreads regarding this man has only him at the negative end. Surely, all of this does teach others a pertinent lesson, that one should never mess with the Indian financial system otherwise you will end becoming next Vijay Mallya and we don’t think anyone would want that to happen to them.
Well we must say that Mallya is a strong man, who is actually, finally and gradually bearing fruits of his past decisions.
Let us then see for what he is in news again. Mallya has been trying to sell off his luxury jet through auction. His first attempt was in the month of June but it failed. Now one official said that, “The department will go in for a fresh round of auction of the personal jet of Mallya to recover the dues amounting to around Rs 1,000 crore” and the reports state that the same Service Tax Department will re-auction it on 18th of August and this time the price will be lower than the price tagged earlier. A joint pricing committee has been officially set to reset the reserve price of this jet. It includes five prime members with Department’s commissioner and some Directorate General of Central Excise Intelligence officials as additional help. Once they decide the final reserve price, it will be revealed at least two days in advance to make this trial of the auction a success.
On Thursday, an official from Service Tax Department told the media that, “The auction which will be held on 18th August by Service Tax Department’s auctioneers, will declare the final result on the same day itself.”
On 30th of June, firstly the luxury jet was priced at 152 crore for which it received a bid of Rs 1.09 crore only. The bidder was a firm supported by United Arab Emirates aviation, and is known by the name Alna Aero Distributional Finance Holdings. Their bid was plainly rejected by the department there and then as it was too low from the reserve price of 152 crore.
Reports suggest that two bids have already been taken for consideration by the department. One of them is from a US-based firm called Ceejay Leasing.
On 25th July, the department had a meeting with Mumbai Airport, MSTC, Ceejay Leasing and other legal consultants regarding this second auction and it ended up with an aim to make this one a success. An official shared that “One of the advices which came up during the meeting was that the reserve price of the plane must be realistic.” Now whether Mallya will get some repaying money from this exercise or not, it will be clear on 18th of August.
