New Delhi: Dragging the Prime Minister’s Officer into the Mallya controversy, Congress President Rahul Gandhi on Friday alleged that the CBI had aided the fugitive tycoon’s “great escape” by changing the “detain” notice to “inform”. Mr Gandhi added that it was “inconceivable” that this was done without Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s approval.

A fresh controversy had erupted on Thursday over Mr Mallya's claim on Wednesday that he had met Finance Minister Arun Jaitley before leaving for the UK. Both parties traded barbs at each other.

“Mallya’s great escape was aided by the CBI quietly changing the ‘Detain' notice for him, to ‘Inform’. The CBI reports directly to the Prime Minister. It is inconceivable that the CBI, in such a high profile controversial case, would change a lookout notice without the approval of the PM,” the Congress President tweeted on Friday.

At a press conference on Thursday, Mr Gandhi had accused Mr Jaitley of lying to hide the “free passage” he allegedly gave to Mallya to flee to London, while the ruling party counter-claimed that the Gandhi family had tried to salvage the sinking Kingfisher Airlines with a “sweet deal”.

Senior Congress leader P.L. Punia had claimed that he had seen Mr Jaitley in “an elaborate 15-20 minute meeting” with Mallya on March 1, 2016, a day before the businessman left India.

Mr Mallya’s claim had elicited a strong rebuttal from Mr Jaitley, who said he never gave any appointment to Mr Mallya but the latter used his MP privilege to acco-st him in Parliament.