Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley has denied meeting the fugitive business tycoon Vijay Mallya before the latter left for the UK. Mallya, today, while appearing at London’s Westminster Magistrates’ Court had claimed that he had met the Finance Minister and repeated his offer to settle with the banks before he left for the UK.
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Finance Minister Arun Jaitley, in a Facebook post earlier this evening denied the meeting Mallya before he left for the UK.
In his note, Jaitley said he has never given any appointment to meet Mallya. But since he was an MP of the Rajya Sabha, while attending the House, he misused that privilege to catch up with Jaitley while he was walking to his room. Jaitley says that Mallya paced up with him and said he was making an offer on settlement. However, since he was aware of these prior ‘bluff offers’, Jaitley told him that instead of him, Mallya should talk to bankers.
Jaitley says he had not even accepted papers Mallya was carrying. Other than this conversation, which happened when Mallya ‘misused his privilege as a Rajya Sabha member’, Jaitley had no other exchange with him and had not given him any appointment to meet him.
Earlier we had reported that Vijay Mallya told reporters in London that he has offered a “comprehensive” settlement to the government of India and that he hoped that the judges consider it favourably and everybody gets paid off. The Westminster Magistrates’ Court is hearing final arguments in the case, and a ruling is expected soon.