New Delhi: India’s largest bank, the State Bank of India, has written off in its books around Rs12 billion in dues owed by liquor baron Vijay Mallya’s defunct Kingfisher Airlines.

Along with other bad loans, the Kingfisher loan has been moved to “Advance Under Collection Accounts (AUCA)” category, which allows banks to take the bad debt off their books while keeping alive the option of pursuing its recovery.

According to sources in SBI, the loans parked in AUCA category is a sign that SBI has more or less given up hope of recovering the money.

In all, the bank has got bad loans worth Rs70.16 billion off its books by moving them to AUCA. It wrote off loans owed to it by 62 wilful defaulters, including Kingfisher Airlines. As many as 63 accounts have been fully written off, 31 partially written off and six shown as Non Performing Assets (NPAs).

Communist Party of India (Marxist) general secretary Sitaram Yechury raised the issue in Parliament on Wednesday.

“While the government claims to crack down on black or untaxed money, Mallya’s loan will not be realised. In effect, it means that only,” Yechury said.

Responding to this, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said that the loan had not been waived.

“It only means that in accounting books, it is listed as a non-performing asset. A write off doesn’t mean forgiving loans. It doesn’t necessarily mean that the bank is not going to pursue the bad debt. The loan will still be pursued,” Jaitley said in the Rajya Sabha (Upper House of Parliament).

He said the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government at the centre inherited a legacy of bad loans.

“The NDA government has inherited a legacy of bad loans. These are loans from the times of United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government of Congress,” he added.

Also Yechury pulled up the Narendra Modi government for its demonetisation move and questioned the government’s logic behind scrapping old Rs500 and Rs1,000 notes.

Linking demonetisation and waiving off loan to Mallya, Yechury said “the small fish are dying, while big crocodiles are enjoying. Demonetisation is like Prime Minister clearing the pond to kill the crocodiles. Not realising crocodiles can live on land as well. The plantation workers have been committing suicide, unable to make ends meet, and truckers across the country are feeling the heat because of demonetisation. Will truck drivers eat at dhabas with credit cards?”

On October 26, the Enforcement Directorate (ED) had moved an application before the special court seeking to declare Mallya an absconder so that they can start attaching his properties.

The ED wants Mallya to join the investigation “in person” in connection with probe under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA).

On June 14, Mallya was declared a ‘proclaimed offender’ by the PMLA court. He had ignored three summons by ED and non-bailable warrants issued by the court. After such an order is issued, the person has to appear before the court within a stipulated period, but Mallya did not do that, so the ED moved the court again for getting him declared as an “absconder”.

Two different courts last week issued non-bailable warrants (NBW) against Mallya in two different cases. Chief Metropolitan Magistrate (CMM) Sumit Dass issued a warrant against him in a Foreign Exchange Regulation Act (FERA) violation case of 1995, while Metropolitan Magistrate Sumeet Anand issued the second one in four cheque bounce cases of 2012.

Mallya has been staying in London as a Permanent Resident for nearly three decades. He had left India on March 2.