Mallya backtracks after saying he met Arun Jaitley before leaving India

London, Sep 13: Fugitive businessman and former liquor baron, Vijay Mallya kicked up a storm when he claimed on Wednesday that he had met Union Finance Minister, Arun Jaitley before fleeing to London. Hours later, he however backtracked and said that there was no formal meeting.

Mallya clarified that there was no formal meeting with Jaitley. " I happened to meet Jaitley in Parliament and told him that I was leaving for London. I said I want to settle with the banks and would he please facilitate these discussions. I did not have any formal meeting scheduled with him."

The clarification came hours after Jaitley said that he had not granted any formal appointment to Mallya. In fact Mallya had misused access as an MP to accost him in a corridor in Parliament to claim he had made an offer of settlement for outstanding loans, Jaitley had said.

Earlier Mallya had said that he met Jaitley and repeated his offer to settle the loans. This provided the opposition some fodder to target Jaitley and the Congress said that the revelations were an embarrassment to the government. When Mallya was asked about Rahul Gandhi's statements that he had been allowed to flee, he said that he was not tipped off by anyone.