Vijay Mallya’s appeal against extradition denied by UK High Court

A UK High Court judge has denied former liquor tycoon Vijay Mallya permission to appeal against his extradition order to India, with alleged fraud and money laundering charges amounting to Rs 9,000 crores.

The 63-year-old former Kingfisher Airlines boss had filed the application in the High Court after UK home secretary Sajid Javid signed off on a Westminster Magistrates’ Court order for his extradition to face the Indian courts back in February.

The application for permission to appeal was refused by Mr Justice William Davis on 05/04/2019, said a spokesperson for the UK judiciary.

The appellant (Mallya) has five business days to apply for oral consideration. He said if a renewal application is made, it will be listed before a High Court judge and dealt with at a hearing. The application seeking leave to appeal had been passed on to a single judge, who was to make a decision on the basis of papers submitted as part of the application.

The renewal process will lead to a brief oral hearing during which Mallya’s legal team and the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) – on behalf of the Indian government – will renew their respective claims for and against an appeal for a judge to determine if it can proceed to a full hearing.

Mallya has been staying in the UK since March 2016 and remains on bail on an extradition warrant executed by Scotland Yard in April 2017.

In her verdict at the end of a year-long extradition trial in December last year, Judge Emma Arbuthnot had ruled that the extravagant billionaire had to provide an answer at the Indian courts.