The effort to extradite Vijay Mallya had reached a crucial stage today where the two sides present final submissions in the long-running extradition case. London’s Westminster Court granted a bail to Vijay Mallya today. The next hearing in the extradition case against Vijay Mallya will be on September 12.
“The Senior District Judge will hear final submissions. Judgment will be reserved until a future date (to be arranged),” said a spokesperson for the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS), who is representing the Indian authorities in the case.
The CBI had earlier submitted a detailed set of documents to the UK court, which includes ‘…it’s a case of conspiracy against former IDBI Bank Deputy Managing Director BK Batra, who was referred to in a court as a new “villain” of sorts in the case…’ As per the Indian authorities’ case, Mallya had sanctioned and approved of some of the loans to the defunct Kingfisher Airlines without following due diligence procedures to get the same sanctioned.
The court asked the Indian authorities to submit within three weeks a ‘video of a cell at the Arthur Road Jail in Mumbai’ where they plan to keep Vijay Mallya post-extradition orders. It is set for September 12 for the closing arguments in this extradition trial.
Last week, Mr. Mallya’s attempted to lodge an appeal in the Court of Appeal against a commercial court judge’s ruling in the lawsuit brought by the banks which were unsuccessful. Mr. Mallya had challenged the registration of the Karnataka Debt Recovery Tribunal 2017 order against him in the U.K.
The extradition hearing started off last December, and has largely focused on a series of loans from IDBI Bank to Kingfisher Airlines – from the way in which these were obtained to how – in the words of the prosecution – “Mr. Mallya allegedly sought to ‘squirrel away’ the money.” The closing oral submissions that were due to be held on 31st July have been postponed to September 12 after the judge was unable to hear the case as scheduled.