Extradition case of Vijay Mallya: a British court asks India to submit a video of the Mumbai prison cell

LONDON (Reuters) – The tycoon of alcohol, Vijay Mallya, said Tuesday that he had made no plea for clemency and that he was ready to pay all taxes to banks.

Mallya, wanted in India for fraud, appeared before the Westminster Magistrates' Court in London where defense and prosecution presented clarifications on Barrack 12 at Arthur Road Jail in Mumbai, where Mallya must be detained after extradition.

The court asked the Indian authorities to submit within three weeks a video of a cell at the Arthur Road prison in Mumbai where they plan to keep Vijay Mallya after extradition, as he set September 12 extradition trial.

The judge fixed the next hearing for final argument on September 12 and extended Mallya's bond until then.

Earlier, Mallya declared that the allegations of money laundering and theft of money against him are "completely false".

"At the end of the day, the courts will decide," he told reporters outside the court.

The former chief of Kingfisher Airlines, aged 62, on bail against an extradition warrant since his arrest last April, is fighting extradition to India for fraud and money laundering up to 9,000 rupees.

At the last hearing in the case on April 27, the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) had received a boost in the case since Judge Arbuthnot had confirmed that the major part of the evidence submitted by the Indian authorities would be admissible in the case.

The CBI had submitted a series of detailed documents to the British court, which included a conspiracy case against the former deputy general manager of IDB, BK Batra, who was described as a new "bad guy" in the United States. ;case.

According to the conspiracy case of the Indian authorities, Batra allegedly collaborated with Mallya in sanctioning some of the loans made to the late Kingfisher Airlines without following the due diligence procedures.

In the separate extradition proceedings, if the judge rules in favor of the Indian government, the British Home Secretary will have two months to sign Mallya 's extradition order. However, both parties will have the opportunity to appeal to the UK's higher courts against the verdict of the Magistrates' Court.

Mallya's defense team, led by attorney Clare Montgomery, challenged allegations of fraud and submitted other written documents from the British Prisoner Expert, Alan Mitchell, challenging some photographs of Barrack 12 from Mumbai Central Prison. where Mallya must be detained when he is extradited from the United Kingdom.

The SPC team, led by attorney Mark Summers, dismissed the additional material as an "attempt to criticize" the information provided by the Indian authorities.

The extradition trial, opened in London court on December 4, aims to present a prima facie case of fraud against Mallya, based in the UK since leaving India in March 2016. It seeks to prove that there are no "roadblocks to extradition" and that the mogul is badured of a fair trial in India over his current flaw of Kingfisher Airlines presumed more than Rs 9,000 crore loans from a consortium of Indian banks.

The SPC argued that the evidence they presented establishes "dishonesty" on the part of the businessman and that it is not there. UK ban on extradition to face Indian courts.

Mallya's defense team filed a series of expert witnesses to badert that it had no "fraudulent" intent and that it is unlikely that it would get a fair trial in India.

Last month, after a long period of silence, Mallya had issued a lengthy statement in the media, calling the charges of the IWC and the Enforcement Branch (ED) against him as "untenable and obviously false ".

He has since lost his appeal to the UK Court of Appeals against a High Court ruling in favor of 13 Indian banks to recover funds amounting to nearly 1.145 billion pounds .

The High Court ruling in favor of the State Bank of India (SBI) consortium reinforced a global freeze decision against Mallya's badets.

It was followed by a related enforcement order last month granting permission to the enforcement agent of the British High Court to enter the properties of Mallya in Hertfordshire , near London, where he is based.

Mallya has since declared that he had given the court a full statement of his British property and that there was no question of using force to enter his home, Ladywalk, in the village of Tewin in England.