Govt units, banks can drive anyone to despair: Mallya

Drawing similarities between him and India’s coffee king VG Siddhartha, liquor baron Vijay Mallya said, “government agencies and banks can drive anyone to despair.”

“See what they are doing to me despite offer of full repayment. Vicious and unrelenting,” Mallya tweeted, hours before the Café Coffee Day founder’s body was recovered along Netravati river on Wednesday.

In a letter to CCD board last week, Siddhartha had alleged harassment by income tax officials. He said, there was harassment from the I-T department through attaching of “our shares on two separate occasions to block our Mindtree deal and then taking position of our Coffee Day shares, although revised returns have been filed by us”.

“Excellent human and brilliant entrepreneur. I am devastated with the contents of his letter,” Mallya wrote in his tweet.

“In Western Countries, Government and Banks help borrowers repay their debts. In my case they are obstructing every possible effort for me to repay my debt whilst competing for my assets. As far as the prima facie criminal case goes wait for the appeal granted,” he wrote in another tweet.

Mallya, who fled to the UK, was charged by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) for defaulting on bank loans worth Rs 9,000 crore. The liquor baron is facing an extradition trial in the UK.