New Delhi, Mar 18 (Agencies): Vijay Mallya, wanted in India by banks to whom his Kingfisher Airlines owes nearly a billion dollars, has been issued fresh summons by the Enforcement Directorate which has asked him to appear before it in Mumbai by April 2.

The liquor baron who had been asked by the agency - which investigates financial crimes - to appear before it today, had, in a letter yesterday, asked for time till April.

Earlier, sources in the Enforcement Directorate, which has summoned Mr Mallya, had said that "it has to be a personal appearance, he can't send his lawyer."

Vijay Mallya, 60, is reportedly in the UK amid attempts to recover over Rs. 9,000 crore loaned to his now-defunct Kingfisher Airlines. "I am not an absconder," the businessman tweeted last week.

On Thursday, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said at the India Today Conclave that banks will "strive to recover every penny" they are owed. Just why exactly banks, many of them state-run, kept heaping large loans upon Mr Mallya despite the obvious financial distress of his Kingfisher Airlines is now being examined by the CBI.

The Enforcement Directorate wanted to question him in Mumbai about whether he siphoned abroad a substantial chunk of a Rs. 900-crore loan given to him in 2009 by state-run IDBI. Top sources in the CBI said their inquiry has scaled up to include the possible collusion of banks with Mr Mallya in financial violations. The CBI says early assessments of nearly six lakh financial transactions involving Mr Mallya show nearly 60 per cent of those moves saw him sending money- including parts of loans -to foreign countries.

Mr Mallya, whose vast fortune is based partly on his ownership of Kingfisher beer, set up Kingfisher Airlines in 2003 as a new luxury airline for Indians. It was grounded in 2012 amid unpaid debts and wages.