by Harish Gupta, National Editor, Lokmat Group
Why did you let Vijay Mallya escape even though he never paid back the nine thousand crore rupees he owed the banks, thundered Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi ? "You began it all", BJP finance minister Arun Jaitley reminded him, "when your government allowed Ottavio Quattrocchi to flee the country". Jaitley then softened his tone and explained to the younger Congress leader that the act of the Gandhi family-friend in 1993 had come at a time when the Swiss authorities named Quattrocchi as a recipient of the Bofors slush money. The CBI had even written to the then (Congress) government to impound his passport. "That makes Quattrocchi's escape a criminal act", Jaitley went on to pontificate. Mallya's case falls in a different category, he argued. He said neither the lending banks had demanded that he be prevented from flying out nor was there any request from the Enforcement Directorate, investigating possible money laundering cases against Mallya, to desist him from leaving the country. It's a different matter that the CBI had to apologize for its own folly in the case later in a press statement.
