Prime Minister Narendra Modi has brought up the issue of the extradition of fugitives Vijay Mallya and Nirav Modi in every India-UK trade-related meeting, according to sources.
The UK government is facing immense pressure from the Indian side over the pending issue of their extradition.
Time and again, the delegations from the UK that have come to India have faced Indian pressure to extradite Mallya and Nirav Modi, the sources revealed.
In a recent interview with private English news channel Times Now, senior advocate Harish Salve said that the British always complain that as soon as there is a meeting the first question that PM Modi would ask is the progress of the extradition proceedings of Mallya and Nirav Modi.
“PM Modi has strongly told the UK government that you can’t be a trade partner and a home for fugitives at the same time,” Salve said.
Vijay Mallya, chairman of Kingfisher Airlines, was ordered to be extradited by the British judiciary in 2019 and is yet to be sent to India. Similarly, diamantaire Nirav Modi has been held in custody at south London’s Wandsworth prison since he was arrested in 2019.
India and the UK had signed an extradition treaty in 1992. This was ratified the following year and has been in force since.
Fugitive diamantaire Nirav Modi’s plea to move the UK Supreme Court against his extradition to India on charges of fraud and money laundering was denied in December last year.
Nirav Modi lost the bid to take his fight against extradition to India on charges of fraud and money laundering to the UK’s Supreme Court. Nirav Modi, a prime accused in the Rs 13,500 crore Punjab National Bank (PNB) scam, had fled India.
He lost his appeal after he moved the High Court in London against his extradition on mental health grounds.
Earlier this March, without mentioning the names of fugitive economic offenders, UK Foreign Secretary James Cleverly had said that the British Judicial system is independent of the government and it is them to decide.
Cleverly told ANI, “The legal process in the UK, just as it is in India, is independent of the government. We always want to see the machinery of the justice system working promptly but those are the decisions of the British Judicial system.”
Notably, Mallya, whose now-defunct Kingfisher Airlines owes more than Rs 9,000 crore to various banks, fled India on March 2, 2016. In January 2017, an Indian court ordered a consortium of lenders to start the process of recovering the loans.
Here is a timeline of all that has happened:
2005: Chairman of United Breweries (Holdings) Limited Vijay Mallya started a luxury airline–Kingfisher Airlines.
2006: Kingfisher Airlines applied for a loan with IDBI bank to seek support for its aircraft acquisitions. Mallya allegedly didn’t share the history with the bank in related to his Mangalore Chemicals and Fertiliser Acquisitions in the past that led to the rejection of his proposal.
2007: Kingfisher Airlines performed financially good that encouraged Mallya to take over Air Deccan.
2008: The official process of acquiring Air Deccan got finished. United Breweries paid a markup of Rs 550 crore for their 26% stake in the entity.
The deal that laid the foundation of the financial nightmare which United Breweries was about to witness.
2008: Kingfisher got a debt of Rs 934 crores due to rising oil prices, spiking working cost stress of a premium and an detoriating airline.
2009: The consolidated debt of the airline accumulated to a whopping Rs 5,665 crore that further led to Rs 7,000 crore.
IDBI finally approved the loan request of Kingfisher, and provided a loan of Rs 900 crore to the airline.
2010 – Mallya had became the Rajya Sabha MP but Banks were mounting pressure on him and gave his airline an ultimatum of 9 months to pay back the entire loan amount.
2011: Mallya took a salary of Rs 33.46 crore from Kingfisher Airlines annually. Meanwhile, the license of the Kingfisher airlines had been revoked due to which it stopped paying salaries to its employees.
Till March 2016, the total owed amount to employees for Kingfisher Airlines was Rs 3000 crore payable to 3000 employees. It owed an amount close to a billion dollars to IDBI and the State Bank of India as loan.
2013: The Kingfisher airlines valued in negative at Rs 12,919 crore due to massive liabilities.
Led by SBI, a consortium of banks approached United Breweries Holdings Ltd(UBHL) for the payback of a loan amounting to Rs 6,493 crore on behalf of Kingfisher Airlines.
Mallya gave an assurance that the larger sum of the amount owed to the banks would be settled at the earliest.
2014: Vijay Mallya had been branded as willful defaulter by United Bank of India. SBI an Punjab National Bank also joined the chorus.
2015 – The total amount owed by Kingfisher had reached to Rs 9,091.40 crore.
April 2015 – To recover the funds, Mumbai International Airport sold Vijay Mallya’s personal aircraft for Rs 22 lakh.
The airline held accountable for non-payment of loans of Rs 115 crore by the Service Tax Department. The Department then took the complaint to Bombay High Court, that ordered the seizure of Mallya’s passport.
March 2016: A consortium of banks sought to move Supreme Court to stop Mallya from escaping from the country. Mallya had, meanwhile, left the country on March 3 for the UK and took refuge in London.
November 2016: PMLA special court declared Vijay Mallya an absconder.
February 2017: India sent extradition request to UK, that got cleared after the interference from the Ministry of External Affairs and Finance Minister Arun JAitley himself.
April 2017: Mallya got arrested by Scotland Yard in UK. However, he was granted bail hours after his arrest.
September 2017: Reports emerged that the CBI and Enforcement Directorate could be a step closer to make Vijay Mallya’s extradition a success. The two organisations had been preparing a chargesheet against him that could strengthen the India’s case in the UK court.
July 2019: In July 2019, Mallya was granted permission to appeal to London’s High Court against his extradition.
July 2020: Vijay Mallya lost his final appeal against extradition. Mallya had filed an appeal in the UK Supreme Court earlier in month of May 2020 in the wake of losing an appeal in the London High Court against an extradition order to India on alleged charges of fraud and money laundering related to unrecovered loans to Kingfisher Airlines. It was said that he could be extradited in next 28 days.
However, in October 2020 the Indian government was notified that Mallya could not be currently extradited due to an unspecified “confidential legal matter”.
On 11 July 2022, the Supreme Court sentenced Mallya to four months in jail and imposed a Rs 2,000 fine on him in a 2017 contempt of court case. He was convicted of contempt in 2017 over transferring $40 million to his children in violation of court orders.
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