Vijay Mallya has offered to pay Rs 4,000 crore by Sep. 31 to the lender-bank consortium, which has accused him of defaulting Rs 6,630 crore, reported the media.
A sealed proposal to this effect was submitted Wednesday by his lawyers to the Supreme Court, which has given the banks two weeks' time to respond, said NDTV.
The consortium of 17 lender-banks led by the State Bank of India (SBI) had approached the court to get Mallya's passport impounded and have him banned from leaving Indian shores. The court, however, had only served a notice to the Member of Parliament through his companies and official email addresses asking for a response.
Mallya's counsel Vaidyanathan did not reply to the court's question of him returning to India, reported the Times of India. However, some of Mallya's other counsels were quoted by NDTV as saying the option of his availability through video-conferencing has always been open, and that he should not be considered an absconder to be returned home urgently.
Mallya and his companies are being investigated by law enforcement agencies on different counts of the same loan default case. The Central Bureau of Investigation is probing if there was any collusion with bank officials for raising loans to his ailing airline in 2009. The Enforcement Directorate is looking into whether funds were later routed to foreign shores for other ventures beyond the terms for which the loans were granted.
Mallya has, however, denied all the allegations, calling them false charges.
