IDBI loan default case: CBI opposes bail pleas of nine accused executives

CBI on Monday opposed the bail pleas of nine accused executives of IDBI Bank and now-defunct Kingfisher Airlines (KFA) who were arrested last week in connection with IDBI loan default case, in which KFA promoter Vijay Mallya is a wanted accused.

CBI lawyer Bharat Badami filed a written reply in a special court in Mumbai, opposing the bail applications of the nine accused, who were arrested on January 23 when the investigative agency filed a charge sheet in the case.

The nine accused, who are in judicial custody till February 7, are former IDBI chairman Yogesh Aggarwal, former CFO of the Kingfisher Airlines A Raghunathan, IDBI executives O V Bundellu, S K V Srinivasan, R S Sridhar, B K Batra, and Kingfisher executives Shailesh Borke, A C Shah and Amit Nadkarni.

Their lawyers, Abad Ponda and Girish Kulkarni, argued that all of them come from respectable families and have roots in the society. Hence, they should be released on bail.

The lawyers also assured the court that the accused, if released on bail, would fully cooperate with the investigating agency and appear before it whenever required.

CBI pleaded that sufficient time had not been given to the investigating agency to interrogate the accused as they were arrested only last week. The central agency said if the accused were granted bail that might hamper the investigation and they might tamper with the evidence.

Special CBI court judge H S Mahajan would hear the arguments on the bail petitions on Tuesday.

CBI said the charge sheet filed recently mentioned that its special investigation team had found that there were many commissions and omissions on the part of IDBI officials in the process of sanctioning and disbursement of loan of Rs 1,300 crore to KFA.

The probe so far has revealed that about Rs 260 crore were diverted by KFA, while Rs 263 crore were used to pay salaries, tax deducted at source, income tax and loan instalments. A part of the loan amount was also allegedly diverted by Mallya for his “personal expenses”.

CBI contended that the IDBI officials, who have been arrested, were instrumental in sanctioning and facilitating disbursement of the loan. The entire team of officials from IDBI, from the proposer to the verifier, was arrested on January 23.