Fugitive tycoon Vijay Mallya is back in the UK court today as his extradition hearing reaches a critical stage. In court today, his lawyers are expected to appeal against an order signed off by UK home secretary Sajid Javid for him to be extradited to India to face alleged fraud and money laundering charges amounting to Rs 9,000 crores.
The 63-year-old former Kingfisher Airlines boss has already lost a UK High Court “leave to appeal” on paper, leading to an oral hearing of his renewal application this week.
During the day-long hearing, listed before Justices George Leggatt and Andrew Popplewell, Mallya’s legal team and the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) arguing on behalf of the Indian government will go head to head to reiterate factors for and against the businessman’s extradition to Arthur Road Jail in Mumbai.
If Mallya is unsuccessful in his appeal, he must be extradited within 28 days from the appeal decision becoming final. However, if he is granted permission to appeal, the case will then proceed to a full hearing stage at the UK High Court. There is a final recourse for Mallya to approach the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) based in Strasbourg, France, to argue against his extradition to India on human rights grounds by trying to prove a real threat of harm or torture or that he would not receive a fair trial.
That again is unlikely to work as the likelihood of the ECHR intervening in a case such as this is slim since the European court would take into account that the human rights related arguments had already been taken into account at different levels during the UK court process and that India is democratic country with an established rule of law.
—India Legal Bureau
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