‘There Can’t Be a Shortcut’: UK Court on Vijay Mallya Extradition

Vijay Mallya.

(Photo: PTI)

A UK-based court on Friday, 5 March, said a “legal process” is on in Vijay Mallya's extradition matter, and it has to be followed through as there cannot be any shortcut, reported NDTV.

This comes after the fugitive businessman lost his appeals in the British Supreme Court, in May 2020, against his extradition to India to face money laundering and fraud charges.

Asked when can Vijay Mallya be extradited to India and if some kind of legal issue is still pending in the matter, new British High Commissioner to India, Alex Ellis, said that he recognises the urgency, importance, and the desire to get back people who are accused of corruption to India.

“Extradition is a mixture of an administrative and a judicial process, and so it goes to the courts. The Home Secretary has done what needs to be done from the executive's point of view in the case of Vijay Mallya. But it (the matter) is part of a judicial process and our courts work their way through those processes. It is something controlled by the judges,” NDTV quoted him as saying.

Vijay Mallya has been based in the UK since March 2016 and remains on bail on an extradition warrant executed three years ago by the Scotland Yard on 18 April 2017.

In another extradition case that India is fighting in the UK, a UK judge ruled last week that fugitive diamond merchant Nirav Modi has no evidence to suggest he would not receive a fair trial in India.

India has been pressing the UK to extradite Vijay Mallya after he lost his appeals in the British Supreme Court.

The UK top court's decision marked a major setback to the 64-year-old businessman as it came weeks after he lost his High Court appeal last April against an extradition order to India.