New Delhi: Public Sector Banks are on a quest to recover the Rs 9000 crores they have lend to former liquor baron Vijay Mallya back to India, but some of their efforts have reportedly led to a hilarious string of errors.
A Firstpost investigation has revealed how banks are messing up the process of recovering loans given to Mallya.
In December 2015, the Bank of Baroda, which lent Rs 550 crore to Mallya, started freezing accounts of those who stood guarantors for him. But some of them turned out to be wrong account holders, forcing the bank to admit it was 'a technical glitch'.
First guarantor:
The first victim of mistaken identities is Manmohan Singh, a marginal farmer from Pilibhit in Uttar Pradesh, who is struggling to make both ends meet. He has to pay off Rs 4 lakh crop loan and provide for treatment for his wife who is suffering from brain tumour.
In December 2015, Singh got a call from the Bank of Baroda telling him that he was guarantor to a Rs 550 crore loan given to defaulter Mallya. His account with a little more than Rs 1000 was frozen and he was warned of legal action.
Singh showed the letter from the Mumbai head office of the Bank of Baroda to his branch in Pilibhit. The first four names on this list of guarantors include Vijay Mallya and three of his relatives. Manmohan figures fifth on the list. While all the Mallyas have their accounts in Mumbai, Bengaluru or Vadodara, Manmohan is the only one off the grid.
Firstpost identified Manmohan Singh Kapur, one of seven directors on the Kingfisher board, as the real guarantor. He's a former chairman of Vijaya Bank and is also on the board of a clutch of companies.
Second guarantor:
The next guarantor on BoB's 9-member list is Subhash R Gupta. He works as a security guard and lives in a Slum Redevelopment Building in Mumbai's Vile Parle.
He's supposed to be one of the people who acted as a guarantor to Mallya's Rs 550 crore loan. His account, which was frozen by BoB, had all of Rs 93 in it.
Gupta had opened the account under the new jan dhan yojana.
The actual guarantor is Subhash R Gupte, a former acting chairman and managing director of Air India, who was till recently on the board of Kingfisher airlines.
Third guarantor:
But the bank was not done embarrassing itself and moved fast to claim its third victim -- a vegetable vendor in Khar East, Mumbai. Subhash Ramdulare Gupta's accounts too were frozen because his name is similar to that of Kingfisher Director Subhash R Gupte.
He has 2 fixed deposits and a savings bank account with funds totalling around Rs 2.5 lakh.When Firstpost contacted Gupta he had no clue his bank had ordered lien on his life's savings without as much as a notice to him.
Later, when the bank realised it had confused directors of an airline for a farmer, a security guard and vegetable vendor, it reversed the orders and attributed the mix-up to a technical error.
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