Rajya Sabha ethics panel recommends Vijay Mallya's expulsion

Just a day after embattled drinks mogul, Vijay Mallya, resigned his Rajya Sabha membership, an ethics committee of Parliament on Tuesday recommended his expulsion, sources said. The recommendation of the ethics committee will be made public on Wednesday. The chairman of the Rajya Sabha will take a final decision on the matter. [caption id=“attachment_2746120” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  A file image of liquor baron Vijay Mallya. AFP[/caption] The panel had made its initial recommendation to terminate Mallya’s membership last week. On Monday, in his resignation letter, Mallya’s had said that he was disappointed with his Rajya Sabha colleagues and repeated the argument that government’s action of revoking his passport was unreasonable, TV channels reported. In April, the government had revoked Mallya’s passport on the request of the Enforcement Directorate (ED) after the agency found evidence of fund diversion by Mallya with respect to the Rs 900 crore IDBI Bank loan default case. Mallya is also facing non-bailable arrest warrants (NBW) against him on charges related to cheque bouncing. Banks are chasing Mallya since he had furnished personal guarantees against the loan facilities extended to his now-defunct airline, Kingfisher, grounded in 2012. The loan became a Non-Performing Asset (NPA) in 2012. Two lenders—SBI and PNB—had tagged Mallya as wilful defaulter. Mallya has been arguing that banks have no right to seek his foreign asset details, but the Supreme Court, late last month, passed the details of his assets to the banks. Earlier, the liquor-baron had blamed the ‘haste’ of Indian government in revoking his passport, thus creating impediments in the ‘whole process and endeavor. Though Mallya had offered to pay Rs 4,000 crore to banks, the lenders rejected the offer citing lack of clarity in the offer. Mallya has been an MP twice–first in 2002 and in 2010. Going by the data (on his second term that started in mid-2010 and ending mid-2016) on the website of PRS Legislative shows that Mallya has an attendance of 30 percent. The number of debates he participated is nil.