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Soibam Rocky Singh■ [email protected]

NEW DELHI: Worried about thefate of their loans worth thou-sands of crores given to the now-defunct Kingfisher Airlines, a consortium of banks moved the Supreme Court on Tuesday seeking to restrain industrialistVijay Mallya from leaving India.

Attorney general MukulRohatgi sought an urgent hear-ing of the petition filed by 13 banks, including State Bank ofIndia (SBI), which also soughtimpounding of Mallya’s pass-port. A bench headed by ChiefJustice of India TS Thakuragreed to hear it on Wednesday.

The banks’ move came a day after the EnforcementDirectorate registered a money-laundering case against Mallyaand a debt recovery tribunal (DRT) barred him from touchingthe ̀ 515 crore he got from sellinga liquor company till the matterwas decided. The DRT will hearthe matter again on March 28.

The ED case is based on a CBI probe into alleged “wilfuldefault” by the high-flying pro-moter of Kingfisher Airlines ona ̀ 900-crore loan in conspiracy with IDBI Bank representatives.

SBI, the largest lender toKingfisher, had approached theDRT in Bangalore to restrainMallya from withdrawing the`515 crore he got as a sever-ance package from the London-based Diageo.

Mallya had quit the chairman-ship of Indian company UnitedSpirits Ltd last month.

Banks owe d money byKingfisher Airlines havedemanded “first right” to theDiageo cash.

CONTINUED ON PAGE 6

Consortium of banks asks SC to keep Mallya in India

Good times hangoverThe Vijay Mallya episode showsthe need to plug holes thatallow firms to exploit gaps inregulatory boundaries >>P16

CBI to widen probeMay register more casesagainst Kingfisher Airlinesfor failing to repay additionalloans of `3,100 crore to 10 state-run banks >>P17

COMMENT

`16,023.46 croreKingfisher Airlines’ accumulated losseswhen it shut operations in 2012

`350 croreAmount Kingfisher owes employees in salaries

`7,200 croreWhat Mallya owes consortium of 17 banksled by SBI against loans to KFA

PLANE TRUTHSMallya’s crore meltdown in numbers

`1,222 crore

Amount lenders have recovered by sellingpledged shares and other collaterals. Another`1,250 cr is deposited with the Karnataka HC

SONIA PUSHES FOR WOMEN QUOTA BILLThe Congress chief demands early passage of the women’s res-ervation bill that will set aside 33% seats in the Lok Sabha and state assemblies for women. The Modi government’s maximum governance philosophy should also mean “giving us women our legitimate due”, Sonia Gandhi said in Parliament on Tuesday.The government will have to bring a new bill to extend the ben-efit as the earlier bill, passed by the Rajya Sabha in 2010, lapsed after failing to get the nod from the Lok Sabha. >>P13■ Construction in full swing at the

festival site. RAVI CHOUDHARY / HT

Delhi civic bodies torent out schools tocoaching institutesMohit Sharma ■ [email protected]

NEW DELHI: Struggling for funds, the city’s three civic bodies planto lease out their schools to pri-vate coaching institutions afterteaching hours.

Money has been a problem.It triggered a civic crisis in lateJanuary when municipal staff, including teachers and doctors,struck work to protest non-pay-ment of salaries. In the comingfinancial year, they are staringat a shortfall of `5,100 crore, thecivic bodies say.

Premises of only those schoolsthat work morning hours — orfirst shift — will be leased out, officials said. The North Delhi municipal corporation (NDMC)has come out with a list of 390such schools. The south and theeast bodies, too, planned to do thesame, sources said.

Around 1 million students go to the city’s 1,860 municipalschools, some of which haveonly a morning shift from 7amto 12.30pm. A majority of them,however, also have a second shift1pm to 6.30pm — to make up for the shortfall of schools in the city.

CONTINUED ON PAGE 6

HTSPECIAL

DWARKA E-WAYGETS NH STATUSTransport minister NitinGadkari has accorded nationalhighway status to Dwarka expressway, a move expectedto speed up the litigation-hitproject’s completion as it now comes under National High-ways Authority of India >>P4

mustread

morestoriesNo harm done: Sri Sri Art of Living founder says hewill set up a biodiversity parkon Yamuna floodplain >>P2

‘Who dumped debris?’DDA pleads ignorance, festivalorganisers tell NGT they wroteto authority about it >>P2

For crowd control Army asked to build pontoonbridges after police expressedfear of a stampede >>P2

HT Correspondent■ [email protected]

NEW DELHI: The National GreenTribunal is likely to decide onWednesday whether a megacultural event will be held onthe Yamuna floodplain in Delhiamid fears that it could harm thearea’s delicate ecosystem.

The green court asked sometough questions to the DelhiDevelopment Authority (DDA),environment ministry and spir-itual guru Sri Sri Ravi Shankar’s Art of Living foundation that hasplanned the programme, with mil-

lions of people expected to attend.“Has any authority concerned

considered the impact of the fes-tival on the river, biodiversity, ecology and environment?” askedNGT chairperson SwatanterKumar. He also wanted to know why no environmental clearancewas sought for the festival.

The foundation said it willclean the river and will not causeany ecological damage, but thisdid not convince the court.

“Don’t waste your breath ontalking about your good inten-tions,” Kumar said.

CONTINUED ON PAGE 6

Green panel may rule on Yamuna show today

HT Correspondent■ [email protected]

NEW DELHI: The governmentrolled back on Tuesday a con-troversial budget proposal totax employees’ provident fund(EPF) withdrawals, caving in tomounting opposition by labourunions, the salaried class andrival political parties.

“In view of the representa-tions received, the governmentwould like to do a comprehen-sive review of this proposal and therefore I withdraw theproposals,” finance ministerArun Jaitley said in a suo motustatement in the Lok Sabha.

In the budget presented byJaitley on February 29, the govern-ment announced 40% of an indi-vidual’s accumulated corpus inEPF and National Pension System(NPS) schemes would not be taxedat the time of withdrawal.

This was taken to mean that the remaining 60% of the EPF

corpus was taxable.The budget also proposed a mon-

etary ceiling of `1.5 lakh on employ-ers’ contribution to PF accounts. This has also been withdrawn.

Jaitley, however, said the pro-posal to keep 40% of withdraw-

als from NPS accounts tax-freestayed unchanged.

Withdrawal from the EPF wasentirely tax-free and the budgetproposal had triggered howlsof protest from subscribers andlabour unions that termed it anti-

worker. The EPF is India’s biggestsocial security scheme with 60 million workers depending on itfor post-retirement savings.

The Congress claimed creditfor the rollback.

CONTINUED ON PAGE 6

EPF tax plan rolled backTAX TRAUMA Jaitley says budget proposal withdrawn for comprehensive review

2 PROPOSALS AXED

60 millionEPFO subscribers. This istheir only post-retirement

social security cushion

■ Finance minister Arun Jaitley announces in LokSabha that proposals to tax EPF withdrawals andto place a `1.5-lakh ceiling on employers’contribution stand withdrawn■ However, proposal to keep 40% of withdrawals

from National Pension System (NPS) accountstax-free stays■ In budget, Jaitley had proposed making 40% of

withdrawals from EPF and NPS tax-free. Thiswas taken to mean that 60% of EPF withdraw-

als would be taxed›My pressure worked...

I had warned thegovernment againstsuppressing the salariedclass. It is a good decision.RAHUL GANDHI, Congress vice-president

▼NIFTY 7 ,485.30 -0.05 ▲SENSEX 24,659.23 +12.75 ▲DOW JONES 17,073.95 +67.18 ▼NASDAQ 4 ,708.25 -8.77 ▼`/$ 67.35 -0.27 ▼`/EURO 74.16 -0.59 ▲*GOLD/10G `29,400 +0.00 ▲SILVER/K `36,800 +0.00

WEDNESDAY, MARCH 09, 2016 New Delhi/METRO ■ Vol. XCII No. 59 ■ Price `5.00/with Hindustan `9.00 (`7.50 in Faridabad) /with Mint `8.50 ■ 40 pages. Area specific pgs extra.

AFTER AIRPORTS AND NUCLEAR FACILITIES, CISFTO GUARD RAMDEV’S FOOD PARK >ht nation p10

NO POWER TARIFF HIKE IN DELHITHIS YEAR TOO, SAYS MINISTER

>ht metro p4

AC/DC FRONTMAN GOING DEAFBAND HALTS TOUR, MAY RESUME WITHOUT BRIAN JOHNSON >ht world p22

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