Facing flak for letting businessman Vijay Mallya leave the country, CBI on Friday said that its first lookout circular calling for his detention was "issued by mistake."
This attempt at damage control comes a day after CNN-IBN first reported that an amendment to the investigating agency's circular helped Mallya fly to London earlier this month.
A CBI spokesperson on Friday claimed Mallya was not found during searches on October 10, 2015 after which the agency wrote to BoI, saying it needs to be issued to ensure "his availability for questioning" in connection with Rs 900 crore loan default case involving IDBI bank.
She said that along with the covering letter, proforma for the circular was attached in which the column related to seeking the detention of an accused was wrongly "ticked" by a SP-level officer.
The agency claimed detention under the look-out circular was only possible on the strength of a non-bailable warrant against an accused which was not the case with Mallya. It said on November 23, CBI's Mumbai office was informed by BoI about the "imminent arrival" of Mallya over phone.
It wanted to know what needs to be done to which the agency realised "corrective" measures were needed and told it not to detain him and asked to provide only his whereabouts and movements, the agency claimed. A day after the look out circular was changed from seeking "detention" to "only providing information about his movements", Mallya arrived in India and appeared for questioning before CBI on December 9, 10 and 11, it said.
The original lookout notice by the Central Bureau of Investigation last October wanted immigration authorities to detain the multi-million loan defaulter if he tried to leave the country.
Then in a stunning U-turn a month later on November 23, the notice was modified to say that his detention was not required.
The original lookout notice was issued on October 12, 2015 vide DPBSM/2015/724/RCNSM 2015 E 0006. The amended one was issued on November 23, 2015, vide letter number 1049/RCBSM/2015/E0006.
Mallya, according to sources, left for London by the 9W122 Delhi-London Jet Airways flight at 12.54 pm on March 2, days before a consortium of banks approached the Supreme Court for his passport to be impounded.
The matter was raised in Parliament on Friday, with senior Congress leader Ghulam Nabi Azad asking what made the CBI change its original notice.
Azad also accused the government of being a party to the exit of the businessman when so many bank default cases were pending against him.
Mallya is facing legal proceedings for alleged loan defaults by his group to the tune of over Rs 9000 crore.
With PTI Inputs.
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