MALLYA EXTRADITION CASE: UK JUDGE SAYS BANKS BROKE RULES

The British judge hearing the extradition case of liquor baron Vijay Mallya on Friday said that it was “blindingly obvious” that rules were being broken by Indian banks, which sanctioned some of the loans to Kingfisher Airlines.

Presiding over a hearing at Westminster Magistrates' Court in London, Judge Emma Arbuthnot directed the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS), arguing on behalf of the Indian government, to provide a breakdown of where some of the emails and documentary evidence presented in the case came from.

Friday’s hearing marked the effective end of oral arguments in the case, which will now return to the court on April 27 to consider the additional material sought by the judge and for closing submissions by Mallya's defence team.

The judge described the case as a “jigsaw puzzle” with different pieces of “massive evidence” to be put together to paint a picture, which she said she was now able to see “more clearly” than a few months ago.

“There are clear signs that banks seem to have gone against their own guidelines (in sanctioning some of the loans),” she said, “inviting” the Indian authorities to explain the case against some of the bank officials involved because that relates to the “conspiracy” point against Mallya.

She also made the court aware of an “unsolicited” email correspondence in Hindi received from India, a language she “unfortunately” is unfamiliar with. In response, the defence team said all sides in the case had been at the receiving end of unsolicited correspondence.

Mallya, who is on trial for the UK court to rule if he can be extradited to India to face charges of fraud and money laundering amounting to around ~90 billion, watched the proceedings from the dock.

Pointing out that Mallya had “chosen not to give evidence” in the case, CPS counsel Mark Summers rejected the defence claims on the evidence as “nonsense”.

“The government of India has established by other copious evidence a prima facie case of fraud,” he said.

On a separate category of evidence presented by the Indian government, Mallya's team questioned the reliability of investigating officers in the case and pointed to over 150 pages of “near identical material” purporting to be statement of witnesses taken under Section 161 of the Indian CrPC.

Friday's hearing marked the effective end of oral arguments in the case, which will now return to the court on April 27