ED restores over Rs 300 crore for ex-employees of Kingfisher Airlines

The Enforcement Directorate on Thursday said it has restituted funds worth more than Rs 300 crore towards long-pending dues of the former workers of now defunct Kingfisher Airlines that was promoted by fugitive liquor baron Vijay Mallya.

Photograph: Mansi Thapliyal/Reuters

The restoration has been enabled pursuant to an order issued on December 12 by the Debts Recovery Tribunal (DRT) located at Chennai directing release of funds realised from the sale of attached shares which had been earlier restituted to State Bank of India by the ED under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA), the federal probe agency said in a statement.

The amount, worth Rs 311.67 crore, is to be transferred to the official liquidator for disbursement to former employees of Kingfisher Airlines, it said.

The ED had booked the airlines, Mallya and others under the PMLA for an alleged bank loan fraud case.

Mallya was declared a fugitive economic offender by a special Mumbai court in 2019 under a law named Fugitive Economic Offender Act (FEOA) of 2018.

The ED, a few years back, had restituted properties worth Rs 14,132 crore to SBI under Section 8(8) of PMLA, which allows restitution of assets to the victims of financial crimes including bank loan fraud.

The restitution was done of the assets that were attached by the ED as part of this investigation.

An asset pool was created from which the present restitution has been facilitated, the agency said.

The ED said it “proactively” coordinated with all stakeholders to ensure settlement of the long-pending workmen dues.

“The ED engaged with senior officials of SBI and facilitated utilisation of PMLA restituted assets for payment of employee claims.

“Acting upon ED’s facilitation, SBI approached the DRT by filing an application and offering the restituted assets for discharge of workmen dues and expressly consenting to the priority of such dues over secured creditor claims,” the agency said.