Abhimanyu Radhakrishnan

Vijay Mallya is once again proving to the world, that In India, as long as you speak polished English, you can get away with anything. To all the people who think Vijay Mallya is a saint, a victim of circumstance and political vendetta, here are some things you should think about. Point no 1 The basis of any law is intent, and you are a criminal if you willfully break it. Vijay Mallya willfully, deliberately, with a sound mind and body, broke the law. In fact, he blew thru it in an armored Humvee at 300 kmph. When he ran away, he was a Rajya Sabha MP with a diplomatic passport. If he was so sure that the cases that were filed were wrong, he could have stayed back and fought them in a court of law. He didn't. Deliberately. And if you deliberately break the law, you are a criminal. Period. Point no 2 You can come up with all the legalese, limited liability, corporate separation etc etc, to acquit Mallya of all his salary liabilities. And you are probably right. And wrong. Are you telling me that a man like Vijay Mallya, who could go to London on a "pre-planned" trip and then stay there for 10 years, who turn and twist the Indian aviation policy to favour him, one who also ran India's biggest alcohol company, was so helpless that he couldn't pay Kingfisher employees? This is a guy who used to wantonly pledge UB shares to raise money for Kingfisher, that too without informing UB Shareholders. He even sold 8% of UB without informing the stock exchanges. He treated UB as a bank to fund Kingfisher when it was having good times. So, why suddenly talk about limited liabilities when things got sour? Then there is always his personal / generational wealth. In 2015, when Kingfisher employees were without salaries for 5 years, some even committed suicide, he had a party to end all parties in Goa. The cost of the party alone would've exceeded the annual salaries of the bottom 30% of his employees. This was when he was already neck deep in legal troubles. Now If he can manifest money for that jamboree, couldn't he have found some money for Kingfisher employees? He could have. But he didn't want to. I agree, it is his money, and he can choose to spend it however he wants. But if he wants to spend it on parties and lifestyle, then he should not shed crocodile tears on PR podcasts, give apologies as honest as Byjus account statements and say there was nothing he could do. If the bugger can transplant a palace 500 feet up in the sky, sure he could have found a way to pay those poor people. Point no 3 Some people said, all he did was run a business badly, surely it was no act of crime. First, he collected PF and Tax from employees, but didn't give it to the government. And the fact that he did it deliberately, is criminal act 1. He deliberately didn't pay fuel costs, airport handling costs, maintenance costs and all the other Kingfisher Airline operational costs. That is criminal act no 2. So many small scale vendors, ones who provided food, the guys who stitched those beautiful uniforms, the ones who provided cleaning staff etc etc, were also defaulted on payments. Many of them even shut down. That is criminal act no 3. Insider trading, not informing exchanges, diverting shares from one corporation to the other, the list of wrongful activities goes on and on. You get the drift. The most damning indictment is the fact that Mallya has not come back after a spending a decade abroad. He knows what criminalities he has done. The fact that he is hiding away in London and is making extra efforts to stay there, itself points to his guilt. Point no 4 Some say that Govt has recovered his money. So, what is the problem? The problem is that if you willfully default a loan and the banks sell your assets to recover the amount, you still are a criminal under Section 420, 406 and 409. They cover the clauses of obtaining loans through false promises/documents and misusing loan money. Now one of the documents our man submitted to take a loan was something that valued the "Kingfisher" brand at $500 million. Safe to say, he is guilty of that one. Point no 5 Mallya keeps saying how he wanted to settle the loan but the govt didn't allow because of Vendetta. Kingfisher went belly up in 2011. He fled in 2016. If he so wanted to settle, he could've paid at least one tranche of his owed money and then sat for negotiations The fact he didn't pay a single paisa and forced the banks to attach his assets, shows he had no intention to ever pay or settle. To summarize, Vijay Mallya can do everything to presents himself as holier than thou businessperson, who was simply unlucky. The fact remains he intentionally ran away, intentionally avoided the law, intentionally refused to pay and intentionally avoided paying his dues. He thought nothing could happen to him. Which, sorry to say, makes him a criminal. P:S: In July 2022, the Supreme Court sentenced Vijay Mallya to four months in jail and imposed a fine of ₹2,000 for contempt of court because our man transferred $40 Million dollars to his kids, in violation of court orders. $40 million translates to around Rs 350 crores. If he had the ability to transfer such a large sum of money to his kids, by circumventing Indian law, he surely could have given some of it to his poor ex-employees.