Vijay Mallya should be extradited to India: UK court

Agencies
December 10, 2018

London, Dec 10: Indian tycoon Vijay Mallya should be extradited from Britain to India to face fraud charges resulting from the collapse of his defunct Kingfisher Airlines, a London court ruled on Monday.

India wants to bring criminal action against Mallya, 62, whose business interests have ranged from aviation to liquor, over $1.4 billion in loans Kingfisher took out from Indian banks which the authorities argue he had no intention of repaying.

Mallya, who co-owned the Formula One motor racing team Force India until it went into administration in July, has denied all wrongdoing and argued the case against him was politically motivated.

Judge Emma Arbuthnot, England's chief magistrate, decided there was a prima facie case against Mallya, who moved to Britain in March 2016, and his human rights would not be infringed if he was extradited. Her ruling will now be passed to the interior minister who must also approve it.

An extradition of Mallya would be a huge win for Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi months before an election, after opposition parties said the government had given a "free passage" to the business tycoon to flee, an accusation it denies.

Modi has faced pressure from political opponents to bring to justice several people who have fled India in recent years to escape prosecution in an array of cases, many of them loan defaults.

Mallya, nicknamed "the King of Good Times" after the slogan on bottles of one of his premium beers and his hard partying lifestyle, was arrested by British police in April 2017. Monday's ruling is unlikely to be the end of the long-running case.

Mallya can appeal Arbuthnot's decision within 14 days to London's High Court. The interior minister's decision can also be appealed to the High Court and ultimately the Supreme Court.

The Indian government said Kingfisher took out a series of loans from Indian banks, in particular the state-owned IDBI, with the aim of palming off huge losses which Mallya knew the failing airline was going to sustain.

It argued Mallya, who moved to Britain in March 2016, had no intention of repaying money it borrowed from IDBI in 2009 and the loans had been taken out under false pretences, on the basis of misleading securities and with the money spent differently to how the bank had been told.

Westminster Magistrates' Court was told Mallyahad been "squirrelling money away to keep it from the bank"

However, his defence team said the Indian government had failed to provide any substantial evidence to justify extraditing him.

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News Network
January 31,2020

New Delhi, Jan 31: Chief Economic Adviser K V Subramanian on Friday said India's GDP is expected to grow at 6-6.5 per cent next fiscal as the economic slowdown has bottomed out.

As per the first advance estimates released by the National Statistical Organisation (NSO), the country's economic growth is likely to hit an 11-year low of 5 per cent in the current fiscal ending March 2020.

The Economic Survey 2019-20, prepared by a team lead by Subramanian, has projected the GDP to expand in the range of 6-6.5 per cent during 2020-21.

The Indian economy has hit the bottom and it will see an uptick from here, he said in a media briefing post the Economic Survey.

Amidst a weak environment for global manufacturing, trade and demand, the Indian economy slowed down with GDP growth moderating to 4.8 per cent in the first half of 2019-20, lower than 6.2 per cent in H2 of 2018-19.

Based on NSO's first advance estimates of GDP growth for 2019-20 at 5 per cent, an uptick in GDP growth is expected in the second half of the fiscal, it said.

According to it, the uptick in second half of 2019-20 would be mainly due to ten positive factors like picking up of Nifty India Consumption Index for the first time this year, an upbeat secondary market, higher FDI flows, build-up of demand pressure, positive outlook for rural consumption, rebound of industrial activity, steady improvement in manufacturing, growth in merchandise exports, higher build-up of foreign exchange reserves and positive growth rate of GST revenue collection.

The survey also emphasised that merger of public sector banks may increase the financial strength of the merged entities, lower the risk aversion and result in lowering of lending rates.

Further, as the implementation of GST further settles down, the increased unification of the domestic market may reduce business costs and facilitate fresh investment.

Reforms in land and labour market may further reduce business costs, said the survey, presented a day before Sitharaman's Union Budget 2020-21.

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News Network
March 21,2020

Rome, Mar 21: Italy on Friday reported a record 627 new deaths from the novel coronavirus, taking its overall toll past 4,000 as the pandemic gathered pace despite government efforts to halt its spread.

The total number of deaths was 4,032, with the number of infections reaching 47,021.

Italy's previous one-day record death toll was 475 on Wednesday.

The nation of 60 million now accounts for 36.6 percent of the world's coronavirus deaths.

Italy has seen more than 1,500 deaths from COVID-19 in the past three days alone.

Its current daily death rate is higher than that officially reported by China at the peak of its outbreak around Wuhan's Hubei province.

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News Network
June 2,2020

Minneapolis, Jun 2: An official autopsy released Monday ruled that George Floyd, the African-American man whose death at police hands set off unrest across the United States, died in a homicide involving "neck compression".

George, 46, died of "cardiopulmonary arrest complicating law enforcement subdual, restraint, and neck compression," and the manner of death was "homicide," the Hennepin County Medical Examiner in Minneapolis said in a statement.

Floyd's other significant health conditions were listed as "arteriosclerotic and hypertensive heart disease; fentanyl intoxication; recent methamphetamine use."

The statement added that the "manner of death is not a legal determination of culpability or intent."

It emphasized that under Minnesota state law "the Medical Examiner is a neutral and independent office and is separate and distinct from any prosecutorial authority or law enforcement agency."

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