London court agrees to hand over Vijay Mallya to India

December 10: United Kingdom’s Westminster Magistrate’s Court orders the extradition of Vijay Mallya to India.  Earlier in the day, the fugitive liquor baron said that his offer to repay the principal amount to Indian banks was “not bogus”, and that he had not “stolen” their money. The 62-year-old owner of the defunct Kingfisher Airline is wanted in India on charges of fraud and money laundering amounting to around Rs. 9,000 crore.

The presiding judge on the Mallya verdict, Judge Arbuthnot, said “Having considered evidence as a whole. There is a case to answer,” as she ruled that 62-year-old Mallya could be extradited to India to stand trial on the charges brought by the CBI and the ED. She was also extremely critical of how loans were granted and then used. The ruling marked a significant point in the high-profile extradition trial that has lasted over a year.

Vijay Mallya’s extradition notice will now be sent to UK Home Secretary. Vijay Mallya now has 14 days to appeal against the order. Mallya left India in 2016 after a consortium of banks got together to start legal proceedings to recover the loans. He has been living in a mansion near London since. The business tycoon will now have to stay in the high-security barracks in a two-storey building inside the prison complex, where Mumbai terror attack terrorist Mohammad Ajmal Kasab was kept.

Mallya was arrested twice and bailed out in London in extradition and money-laundering cases filed by the CBI and the Enforcement Directorate (ED) which has accused him of conspiring to defraud banks through a Rs 9,100 crore loan to Kingfisher AirlinesNSE -11.11 % Ltd., a premium airline he founded in 2005 and shut down seven years later. He owes Rs 6,203 crore to 12 banks and the ED has attached his properties worth Rs 8,000 crore. Indian banks got Mallya’s asset frozen through a UK court last year. The asset freeze order had forced Mallya to live on 5,000 pounds a week, but his allowance was increased to roughly 20,000 pounds a week this year.