Vijay Mallaya is facing fraud charges resulting from the collapse of his defunct company Kingfisher Airlines. Mallya was denied permission to appeal to the UK Supreme Court against a High Court order that upheld a 2018 ruling to extradite him to India. The ruling ends his legal options to challenge his extradition. Under the India-UK Extradition Treaty. The UK Home Office Minister Priti Patel is now expected to formally certify the court order for Vijay Mallya to be extradited to India within 28 days.
Judicial authorities in India are awiting anxiuosly to welcome Vijay Mallya on his extradition from Britain to face charges of fraud and money laundering involving more than Rs. 9000 crore of loans to his Kingfisher airline, which collapsed into bankruptcy in 2012.
Mallya would have been deported long back but for the legal wranglings. His legal challenge to the Indian government's extradition request was turned down at the Supreme Court level in the UK last year, n't been extradited as yet, He remains in Britain on bail until UK Home Secretary Priti Patel signs off on the order for him to be extradited to India to face charges of fraud and money .
Vijay Mallya, who was due to be extradited to India last year, used “another route” to be able to stay in the UK, the embattled liquor tycoon’s barrister representing him in bankruptcy proceedings in the High Court here confirmed in the court for the first time. As per reports Mallya’s barrister is exploring to use asylum route which, according to legal experts, would depend upon whether Mallya applied for asylum prior to the extradition request or after.
The 65-year-old businessman, whose legal challenge to the Indian government’s extradition request was turned down at the Supreme Court level in the UK last year, remains in Britain on bail until UK Home Secretary Priti Patel signs off on the order for him to be extradited to India to face charges of fraud and money laundering related to the now-defunct Kingfisher Airlines.
“The extradition was upheld but he [Mallya] is still here because as you know there is another route for him to apply to the Secretary of State [Patel] for status,” said barrister Philip Marshall, when specifically asked by Deputy Insolvency and Companies Court Judge Nigel Barnett about the status of the extradition proceedings during a remote hearing on Friday.
The UK Home Office has so far only confirmed on background that a confidential legal process remains ongoing before the extradition request, signed by the Home Secretary on February 3, 2019, can be certified and executed.
Similarly, the deportation of fugitive diamond jeweler Mehul Choksi, was to be deported after Antigua Prime and Minister Gaston Browne had asked Dominica to send him back to India directly but a court in Dominica has put on hold his extradition after his lawyers contested the order. They claim that the wanted businessman cannot be sent to India as he is is no longer a citizen of the country. Now the next hearing in the matter is on Friday/
The diamond jeweler, along with his nephew Nirav Modi, is wanted in India for allegedly siphoning off Rs 13,500 crore of public money from the state-run Punjab National Bank using fake documents. Nirav Modiis jailed in London. He is also contesting his extradition to India.
It is to be noted that the fugitive offenders of India flee to Britain because the legal system in India and Britain is almost identical. India and Britain signed the extradition treaty in 1992. Last year, India had given a list of 57 fugitives to Britain and Britain has given a list of 17 fugitives to Indiandia and Britain had signed the extradition treaty in 1992 and Britain had extradited just 1 offender so far namely; Indian Samirbhai Vinubhai Patel in 2016, after which Britain has not extradited any fugitive to India. India has so far handed over two offenders to Britain.
The British Human Rights Commission is considered to be very strict and it protects the interest of every individual residing in its territory. Undoubtedly, this protection is being misused by the offenders.
Take the Gulshan Kumar's murder case. The music duo Nadeem-Shravan’s Nadeem Akhtar Saifi is accused of conspiring the murder of Gulshan Kumar. Nadeem is also hiding in London and the Indian government fought a case in the London court for his extradition, but the case of extradition was cancelled because London Court did not found him prima facie culprit in this case.
Not only Indian fugitives offenders but a lot of Pakistani offenders also take shelter in London. Former Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf, former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and his family, Benazir Bhutto's family; Bilawal Bhutto and his sisters were all living in Britain from many years.
Now the need of the hour is to rework how extradition and human right laws are not misused by fugitives.
(Chander Sharma)
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