London: Liquor baron Vijay Mallya appeared Tuesday before the Royal Courts of Justice here for his appeal against extradition to India to face fraud and money laundering charges amounting to Rs 9,000 crores, where his lawyers claimed ‘multiple errors’ in a magistrates’ court’s order.
The 64-year-old former Kingfisher Airlines boss, who remains on bail since his arrest on an extradition warrant in April 2017, avoided the usual scrum of reporters at the court entrance and went in with his lawyers separately. “I’m just here to listen,” Mallya said, when asked for a comment.
Justice Stephen Irwin and Justice Elisabeth Laing were told by Mallya’s barrister that Chief Magistrate Emma Arbuthnot’s verdict in favour of extradition in December 2018 was flawed and also questioned the admissibility of some witness statements submitted by the Indian government.
Clare Montgomery opened her arguments to try and establish that Mallya had no fraudulent intentions when he sought bank loans for his now-defunct Kingfisher Airlines because he is no ‘fly by night figure but an immensely wealthy man’ who was not running any sort of ‘ponzi scheme’ but a reputable airline, which fell into economic misfortune along with other Indian airlines.
In what she described as a ‘very dense case’, which has proved extraordinarily difficult to manage as there are ‘any number of rabbit holes’ to go down, Montgomery said: “She (Arbuthnot) did not look at all of the evidence because if she had, she would not have fallen into the multiple errors that permeate her judgment.”
The hearing is scheduled for three days with Mallya’s barrister to lay out her oral arguments, with the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) on behalf of the Indian government set to counter Wednesday. A verdict may be handed down at the end of the hearing on Thursday, but judgment could be delayed to a later date depending on how the hearing progresses.
Representatives from the Enforcement Directorate (ED) and Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) were present in court as Montgomery once again sought to raise questions over whether the CBI behaved ‘properly in bringing charges’ against Mallya under former Special Director Rakesh Asthana, who she said may have been guilty of ‘misconduct’.
Judge Irwin intervened to question whether Montogomery could re-enter these pervious claims, which had already been rejected at the magistrates’ court level and sought clarifications on where the law may have been wrongly applied by the Chief Magistrate.
PTI