First lookout notice against Vijay Mallya was a mistake: CBI

“We sent a letter to the Bureau of Immigration on October 12 that Mallya was wanted for questioning in connection with a CBI case. In the lookout circular proforma which was sent to the authority subsequently, our Mumbai branch office inadvertently ticked the box meant for detaining the subject, whereas we only wanted information about his movement. The error was corrected in the next circular,” said CBI spokesperson Devpreet Singh.

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The agency said it is now examining who made this mistake and how it happened. It said the mistake was made by a lower-level officer, but sources said such requests cannot be sent by an officer below the rank of superintendent of police and is generally vetted by a joint director. “In high-profile cases, it always goes to the joint director,” said a former CBI officer.

According to the CBI, it did not want Mallya to be detained as its investigation was still at the “initial stage”, and he was cooperating with the investigations — he was questioned thrice in December last year. “We also had no legal ground to get a lookout circular for detention issued as you require a non-bailable warrant for that,” said Singh.

The agency cited Rule 12.2 of the CBI Crime Manual which states that “in cases of individuals to whom it may be advisable to deny use of passport facility, arrest warrants shall normally be obtained to invoke the provisions of Sections 6 and 10 of the Passports Act, 1967.”

Sources, however, said that in case of lookout circulars for detention, the provisions of Section 41 (dealing with arrest) of Criminal Procedure Code (CrPC) come into effect.

Rule 12.1 of the CBI Crime Manual says, “The police officers of Delhi Special Police Establishment may arrest an individual concerned in any cognizable offence notified under Section 3 of the DSPE Act or against whom a reasonable suspicion exists of his having been involved in the crime, without any warrant of arrest issued by a competent court. This power is derived from Section 41 of the CrPC.”

“You do not need non-bailable warrant for a lookout circular. It is advised to take it if you want to revoke someone’s passport and deny him travel documents. It’s not legally binding,” said a former CBI officer.

Asked how the agency learnt of its “inadvertent mistake”, the CBI spokesperson said that on November 23, the agency got a call from immigration authorities informing them of Mallya’s imminent arrival from London, and that “information about him would be available in future”. It was then that the agency learnt that it had issued a lookout circular for his detention, he said.

“A correction was then made to the circular and sent to the Bureau of Immigration,” he said.

“This is unheard of. Once a lookout circular is issued by Immigration, it just executes it. It does not call back the agency for clarification or information,” said the former CBI officer.

Giving the sequence of events related to its probe against Mallya, vis-a-vis the lookout circulars issued, CBI said it registered a complaint in the loan default case “suo motu”. “No bank complained to us. We registered a case on July 29, 2015 based on source information. We would like more banks to come forward and register a complaint with us,” said the CBI spokesperson.

According to the agency, it conducted searches at various locations on October 10, but could not find Mallya. It thus got the first circular issued on October 16. Mallya was in London at that time.

“After the second circular on November 24, 2015, Mallya came back the same day and left the country again on December 1. He came back on December 7 and left on December 23. On February 2, 2016, he again came back to India, only to leave on February 8. He once again came back the same month, only to leave on March 2,” said the CBI spokesperson, adding that, in between, Mallya was questioned on December, 9, 10 and 12.

CBI said this showed that there was no fear of Mallya running away. It said it would issue summons to him for further questioning if needed. It also said its investigation was going on smoothly and his disappearance had not impacted it.

The CBI is investigating the loan default case in connection with a loan of Rs 900 crore granted by IDBI Bank to Kingfisher Airlines.