Under seige businessman Vijay Mallya is understood to have recently filed an application seeking political asylum in the UK, said top legal sources close to the development. His team of lawyers had been working on the asylum route as a last resort, if his appeal challenging the extradition proceedings were rejected, said legal sources in the UK.
These sources further added that the request for asylum has already been sent to the office of UK home secretary Priti Patel. On May 14, he UK High court — which had ruled in April that Mallya could be extradited to India — declined to grant him leave to approach the Supreme Court. It’s not clear if the asylum request was filed before or after that date. “At this point we can only confirm he has moved the UK home secretary’s office seeking political asylum,” said a legal expert privy to the development.
Besides the asylum request, Mallya has the option of approaching the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR). “The other option was to appeal before the ECHR claiming that he would not receive a fair trial back home. Although the UK is a signatory, the home secretary could overlook this while signing Mallya’s extradition order if Indian agencies are able to convince her that the said issue has been dealt in detail during the course of the trial. India could also mention that courts in the UK are satisfied on the specific issue of human rights violation,” added the source.Vijay