The UK govt on Thursday said runaway business tycoon Vijay Mallya, who is blamed for robbing Indian banks for thousands of crores of rupees will have delayed extradition because of the legal issues which are involved in the case. Mallya currently resides in the United Kingdom and is trying to avoid extradition to India.
Mallya's plea to appeal to the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom against the extradition order given by the High Court in London was denied last month. The United Kingdom high commission said, "Confidential legal issues need to be resolved before Vijay Mallya's extradition can be arranged." He cannot be sent back before "further legal issues" are resolved. The high commission stressed on the issues being confidential.
"Vijay Mallya last month lost his appeal against extradition and was refused permission to appeal to the United Kingdom's Supreme Court. However, there is a further legal issue that needs to be resolved before Mr Mallya's extradition can be arranged," said a British high commission spokesperson. "Under UK law, extradition cannot take place until it is resolved. The issue is confidential and we cannot go into details. We cannot estimate how long this issue will take to resolve. We are seeking to deal with this as quickly as possible," the spokesperson added.
According to the UK's Extradition Act, any individual can be extradited within 28 days of an order by a high court or the Supreme Court. Although, if the individual makes an asylum claim, which means to make an appeal to stay in the United Kingdom as a refugee, the extradition will not be processed until the claim is settled. Mallya's asylum claim, if made at all, is yet to be cleared, sources in the CBI confirmed.
Mallya, who was the founder of the currently dysfunctional Kingfisher airlines, had fled to the UK in March 2016. He had been accused of financial contortion of more than 9,000 crores. He has ever since been claiming that the charges pressed against him are false and that he has been framed for a baseless crime. He has also claimed that the Centre has refused to entertain his plea offer to clear his loans.
His extradition to India is based on an FIR reported by the CBI in 2015 related to a loan sanctioned by IDBI Bank to Kingfisher airlines.
Mallya has been charged by the Enforcement Directorate for diverting most of the loaned money into foreign assets, F1 Motorsport Company Formula One and the Indian Premier League (IPL) team Royal Challenger's Bangalore team which he owned. Mallya's assets worth 13,000 crores have been seized by the Enforcement Directorate.
