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Indian authorities ratchet up pressure on Mallya
The Indian authorities are ratcheting up the pressure on Vijay Mallya, the fugitive former head of United Breweries and United Spirits.
The country’s market regulator has barred him for three years from trading any securities in the country and from associating with any company listed there.
This comes just a month after a special court in Bangalore issued an open-ended non-bailable warrant against him to reinforce the international arrest warrants already in force.
Assets
The effect of the latest moves is that Mallya’s access to any assets held in India is blocked and he would be jailed immediately to await appearing in court if he were returned to India.
The Indian government has been trying to extradite Mallya, 68, to face charges of fraud resulting from the collapse of his defunct company Kingfisher Airlines.
Mallya, who also co-owned the Formula One motor racing team Force India until 2019, has denied all wrongdoing.
According to records quoted by Reuters, Mallya owns an 8.1% stake in Kingfisher beer-maker United Breweries, which is controlled by Heineken, and has retained a 0.01% stake in Diageo-controlled United Spirits.
Bankruptcy
Mallya is a “fugitive economic offender” who the authorities say defrauded Indian banks of £1.15 billion in loans made to his Kingfisher Airlines which collapsed into bankruptcy in 2012.
Despite the trading ban and a global freeze on his bank accounts, Mallya does not seem short of funds.
He lives in a luxury mansion in London’s exclusive Regents Park and on his estate at Tewin in Hertfordshire. He is regularly seen at prestige events such as the Silverstone F1 Grand Prix and major cricket fixtures.
Asylum
It is now four years since he exhausted all avenues in the UK courts to resist extradition to India but he remains at liberty in the UK until a “confidential legal matter” is resolved.
That is widely thought to be an application for asylum on the grounds that he would not be fairly treated if he were ever to return to India, which he fled in 2016 on the eve of an arrest warrant being served on him.
After one London court hearing, a member of Mallya’s legal team predicted that he would “never” be returned to India.
India’s courts have seized assets to repay the loans in question. That, however, does not resolve he criminal charges on which he has been found guilty in his absence, including contempt of the supreme court in Delhi.
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