KUALA LUMPUR (March 22): AirAsia (India) Ltd (AAI), a 49%-owned associate of AirAsia Bhd, has lodged a police report in India over what it termed as 'irregular personal expense claims and certain company charges' by a 'certain former personnel'.

In a filing with Bursa Malaysia today, AirAsia said AAI filed the police complaint with the competent authorities in Bengaluru, Karnataka, India, on Nov 9 last year.

AirAsia did not explain why it was only making the disclosure four months after the actual event occurred.

Last October, responding to an article by The Edge Financial Daily (FD), AirAsia said there was an ongoing investigation against certain former personnel of AAI involving irregular personal expense claims and certain company charges.

(See also: Ousted Tata chief claims fraud at AirAsia India)

AirAsia said then that the matter had already been reported to and discussed at previous AAI board meetings and that AAI would not make any specific reference to the matters investigated at the time as it may be prejudicial to AAI or the personnel investigated.

Other than AirAsia, AAI is also 49% owned by India's Tata Sons Ltd. The remaining 2% are owned by AAI's board member R Venkatraman (1.5%) and S Ramadorai (0.5%).

In its Oct 28, 2016 issue, FD reported that former Tata Sons' board chairman Cyrus Mistry had revealed that fraudulent transactions amounting to 22 crore rupees (RM13.79 million) involving 'non-existent parties in India and Singapore' have been uncovered in a forensic investigation.

"Executive Trustee, Mr Venkatraman, who is on the board of AirAsia and also a shareholder in the company, considered these transactions as non-material and did not encourage further study," according to a confidential email by Mistry to Tata Sons' board of directors, which the daily reported.

"It was only at the insistence of the independent directors, one of whom immediately submitted his resignation, that the board decided to belatedly file a first information report," the email went on to say.

In the email, Mistry, who was abruptly removed as Tata Sons chairman on Oct 24 last year, claimed he was wrongfully dismissed and defended his track record of four years in office, saying he had inherited a debt-laden conglomerate and that the group faced up to US$18 billion (RM75.24 billion) in potential impairments due to various loss-making subsidiaries.

Mistry was made chairman to the US$100 billion salt-to-software conglomerate in December 2012, which he took over from Ratan Tata, who had led the group for 21 years prior to this.

Ratan was then appointed as interim chairman before the group appointed Tata Consultancy Services chief executive Natarajan Chandrasekaran as the new executive chairman on Jan 12 this year.

AirAsia's share price slipped two sen or 0.71% to RM2.18 today, giving it a market capitalisation of RM9.39 billion.