Vijay Mallya appears before UK court in extradition case

London: A London court is hearing a plea of embattled liquor baron Vijay Mallya, who is seeking permission to appeal against the UK Home Secretary's order extraditing him to India to face alleged fraud and money laundering charges amounting to Rs 9,000 crore.

A two-member bench of Justices George Leggatt and Andrew Popplewell of the Administrative Court division of the Royal Courts of Justice is hearing the arguments of Mallya's counsel Clare Montgomery and Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) arguing on behalf of India.

The 63-year-old former Kingfisher Airlines chief lost a "leave to appeal" in UK High Court on paper on April 5 against the extradition order, leading to an oral hearing of his renewal application.

On April 11, he applied for an oral hearing to argue his case, which has been listed in a four-hour slot on Tuesday.

Mallya's counsel sought to persuade the court saying that it is reasonably arguable that the order of Westminster court judge Emma Arbuthnot was erroneous in sending his case to Home Secretary Sajid Javid to order his extradition.

Mallya's counsel Montgomery argued against Judge Arbuthnots' ruling that Kingfisher Airline and Mallya misrepresented the company's financial situation to the consortium of banks, saying that her client made the company's financial position abundantly clear.

"The Government of India supplied documents late. By then the magistrate had already given her decision. The other point the judge makes is the assumption is that all the documents that are available are available to the court is not correct," she argued.

Montgomery argued that the case by the Indian government was moved in a different case. "You cannot ask for someone for one offence and then say that you will be charged for a separate offence," she said.

To this, one of the judges said the "extradition request" is irrelevant, not the offences.

Mallya came with his son Siddharth and girlfriend and former Kingfisher Airline hostess Pinki Lalwani to the court.

Mallya, who fled India in March 2016, has been living in the United Kingdom since then.

The Patiala House Court in New Delhi had already declared Mallya a proclaimed offender for evading summons in January 2018. The court had also issued an open-ended non-bailable warrant against him for evading summons and law of the land in 2017.