Court strengthens warrant against Vijay Mallya

The Indian authorities are piling the pressure on Vijay Mallya, the fugitive former head of United Breweries and United Spirits.

A special court in Bangalore has issued an open-ended non-bailable warrant against him to reinforce the international arrest warrants already in force.

The effect of the new action is that Mallya would be jailed immediately if he were returned to India.

Health

Five years ago a special cell was prepared to receive him in Mumbai’s Arthur Road jail. Part of his case in resisting deportation to India was that the facilities there were inappropriate for his health conditions.

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.

The company never made a profit.

Luxury

Mallya lives in a luxury mansion in London’s exclusive Regents Park and also 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.

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 in the UK 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.

Seized assets

Mallya has consistently denied guilt and the Indian 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.

The case for the return of Mallya and other economic fugitives has been pressed on UK government ministers on numerous occasions by their Indian counterparts but always it has been underlined that his is a judicial matter and that the government cannot interfere with court processes.

Sources in Delhi suggest that India is hoping that a new UK government will review that position.

Mallya is also being pursued by Diageo and its Indian subsidiary United Spirits for some £250 million which they claim he owes following accounting discrepancies at the time of the UB takeover in 2013 and the subsequent breaking of undertakings by Mallya in relation to payments to quitting UB’s board.