Vijay Mallya extradition case: UK court to pronounce final judgement on Monday

London's court will announce its final judgement over Vijay Mallya extradition case on Monday. A joint team of CBI and ED led by CBI Joint Director A Sai Manohar has left for the United Kingdom for the same. 

The London court proceedings are in relation with India’s request seeking extradition of Vijay Mallya. 

"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 his recent Twitter post on the issue.

"I have offered to repay 100 per cent of the principal amount to them. Please take it," the flamboyant businessman tweeted earlier.

The 62-year-old former Kingfisher Airlines boss, who has been on bail on an extradition warrant since his arrest in April last year, is fighting extradition to India on charges of fraud and money laundering amounting to around Rs 9,000 crores. Mallya has been living in Britain since March 2016. The extradition case has entered final stages with Westminster Magistrates' Court in London likely to pronounce a verdict in December this year. 

The extradition trial, which opened at the London court on December 4 last year, with the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) team, led by Mark Summers, aiming at laying out a prima facie case of fraud against the embattled liquor tycoon, who has been based in the UK since he left India in March 2016. It also seeks to prove there are no "bars to extradition" and that the tycoon is assured a fair trial in India over his now-defunct Kingfisher Airlines' alleged default of over Rs 9,000 crores in loans from a consortium of Indian banks.

The extradition process from the UK involves a number of steps including a decision by the judge on whether or not to issue a warrant of arrest.

Only one person has ever been extradited from the UK to India under the extradition treaty between the two countries signed in 1993. Samirbhai Vinubhai Patel, wanted in a case related to the 2002 Gujarat riots, was extradited in October 2016.

Meanwhile, Vijay Mallya earlier this week, offered to repay 100 per cent of the amounts to bank. In a series of tweets, Mallya said, "Airlines struggling financially partly becoz of

While the CPS argued that Mallya never intended to repay the loans he sought in the first place because his airline's demise was inevitable, the defence tried to establish that Kingfisher Airlines was suffering from consequences of a wider global financial crisis around 2009-2010 and that its failure was a result of factors beyond the company's control.

"There are clear signs that the banks seem to have gone against their own guidelines [in sanctioning some of the loans]," Judge Arbuthnot had noted during the course of the trial.

In relation to the defence's attempts to dispute Indian prison conditions as a bar to Mallya's extradition on human rights grounds, the judge had indicated to the CPS that she did not require any further information in reference to the prison conditions awaiting Mallya at Barrack 12 of Mumbai's Arthur Road Jail after seeking a video of the cell.

"If the judge is satisfied that all of the procedural requirements are met, and that none of the statutory bars to extradition apply, he or she must send the case to the Secretary of State for a decision to be taken on whether to order extradition," explains Pavani Reddy, a UK-based legal expert and Managing Partner of Zaiwalla & Co.

The judge's decision on whether to send Mallya's case to UK Home Secretary Sajid Javid can be appealed with the UK High Court's permission, with the person to be extradited entitled to make an application for permission to appeal to the High Court within 14 days of the date of the Chief Magistrate's ruling.

On the other hand, the Indian government would also have 14 days to file leave to appeal to the High Court, seeking permission to appeal against a decision not to extradite.

"In case the concerned individual does not file an appeal, and Secretary of State agrees with the magistrate's decision, then the individual must be extradited from the UK within 28 days of the Home Secretary's extradition order.

"This will also apply if an appeal lodged by either party in the High Court is unsuccessful, but the 28 days will commence from the date when the appeal hearing was concluded," said Reddy.