Even as there is still no sign of businessman Vijay Mallya, the government assured the Supreme Court on Friday that it is taking steps to extradite him from the United Kingdom. The extradition hearing there is scheduled for December 4, 2017.
As Attorney-General K.K. Venugopal detailed India's extradition request made in February 2017 before the U.K. government and the subsequent steps taken, a Bench of Justices A.K. Goel and U.U. Lalit intervened to say that the court does not wish to "oversee" the government's efforts to bring Mallya back.
Justice Goel made it clear that the court would decide the punishment in the contempt case against Mallya when he is produced before it. It deferred the case till then.
In a status report filed by the Ministry of Home Affairs in the Supreme Court, the government said that prosecutors of the Crown Prosecution Service had met with CBI and ED officials in London on May 2 and 3, 2017. The Indian authorities had supplied the U.K government with all additional evidence and documents against Mallya with regard to buttressing their case for his extradition.
"All evidence regarding falsities, misstatements and false representations of Vijay Mallya and officials of KAL [Kingfisher Airlines Limited] were forwarded to the U.K government... the U.K authorities are satisfied with the material supplied by the Indian agency," the status report said.
The Indian government has already communicated to the U.K government that, if extradited, Mallya would be detained in Barrack number 12 at the Arthur Road Jail in Mumbai.
The U.K government had sent the Indian authorities a detailed advisory with questions and concerns about the prison conditions here.
In May, the Supreme Court had found him guilty of wilful disobedience of the court's order to come clean about his assets so that the banks could recover his loans to the tune of Rs. 9200 crore. The court also found through the banks that Mallya had not disclosed a sum of $40 million (Rs. 600 crore) received from British liquor major Diageo Plc following his resignation as Chairman of United Spirits Limited in February 2016.
