UK court orders Vijay Mallya’s extradition
LONDON: A United Kingdom court has ordered the extradition of businessman Vijay Mallya to India to face charges of financial irregularities running into thousands of crores.
Judge Emma Arbuthnot said on Monday that she would send the case to Britain’s Home Secretary for review and action. She said there were substantial misrepresentationsinMallya’scharacterisations of his financial dealings that gave weight to the Indian extradition request.
The judge said banks may have been fooled into making bad loans by “this glamorous, flashy, famous, bejeweled, bodyguarded, ostensibly billionaire playboy who charmed and cajoled these bankers into losing their common sense.” She said his companies were in “desperate” financial situations that were concealed from the banks.
The 62-year-old tycoon can still appeal the ruling. He remains free on bail, though the judge told Mallya she would “take your money away” if he failed to show up for future hearings.
Mallya declined to say whether an appeal is planned and his lawyers urged him to make no statement until they had spoken with him. He showed no emotion when the ruling was announced.
“Whatever the judgement, my legal team will ... take proper
steps thereafter. Yes I have tweeted saying that I want to repay, that has nothing to do with this extradition issue. It’s a completely separate matter,” Mallya had told the press in morning while entering the court.
Mallya also said that he has not stolen anyone’s money and his offer to pay back the loan amount of banks is not a bogus one.
The 62-year-old former boss of Kingfisher Airlines has been on bail since his arrest on an extradition warrant in April last year. He has contested that the extradition case against him is “politically motivated” and the loans he has been accused of defrauding on were sought to keep his now-defunct airline afloat.
“I did not borrow a single rupee. The borrower was Kingfisher Airlines. Money was lost due to a genuine and sad business failure. Being held as guarantor is not fraud,” he said in a post on Twitter recently.
“I have offered to repay 100 per cent of the principal amount to them. Please take it,” the flamboyant businessman tweeted earlier.
A joint team of the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) and Enforcement Directorate (ED) led by CBI joint director A Sai Manohar are in the United Kingdom for the court proceedings.