Mallya’s Luxury Plane to Be Auctioned on August 21 By Service Tax Department

Mumbai: The Service Tax Department has announced to take another attempt to auction the luxury plane of besieged Indian businessman Vijay Mallya after the first attempt failed. The service tax department is likely to stage the second attempt on August 21 with ‘lower reserve price for bidders.’

“The department is gearing up to go in for a fresh round of auction of the personal jet of Mallya in its bid to recover dues amounting to over Rs 800 crore with a lower reserve price,” said an official from service tax department.  He also added that the Bombay high court has given a positive nod to go for a second round of auction, which is likely to go on August 21.

Reports are that on June 30, the department had rejected the sole bid of Rs 1.09 crore offered by a United Arab Emirates-based aviation support firm, Alna Aero Distributional Finance Holdings, against a reserve price of Rs 152 crore.

The personal jet, owned by Vijay Mallya, has a carrying capacity of 25 passengers and six crewmembers and is exclusively designed for luxury, sources said. However, the final decision on valuation of the personal jet planes will be taken by the service tax department’s joint pricing committee.

Also, reserve price, amount hidden to the buyers primordially, but has to pay when the final deal is under process, is likely to lower this time to attract more bidders who intends to buy the luxury plane. But the decision over valuation is likely to take place in the next 10 days.

Vijay Mallya owes Rs 32.68 crore as service tax that was collected by selling tickets to passengers of Kingfisher Airlines. Apart from auctioning the luxury plane, earlier attempts to sell the Kingfisher House in Mumbai also did not get any buyer, sources said.