Vijay Mallya Always Was Going To Be Righteously Extradited

Vijay Mallya has just lost his latest stage of the fight against extradition to India. The thing is there’s never really been any reason why he shouldn’t be so extradited. There’s the usual extradition treaty between India and the UK – you need to hide away in much less salubrious places to be free of those sorts of treaties. There’s no obvious political oppression going on. India’s courts are slow, they most assuredly are, but they’re also pretty fair and reasonable. Not perfect, for no country’s are, but they’re certainly not politically subservient.

And the crimes Mallya is wanted for questioning about? They all meet the usual double criminality standard. If he was either English or Indian and did them in England then the questioning, charging, would be just and righteous. They obviously are in India or the extradition request would never have been issued. There’s simply no reason why he shouldn’t be extradited.

[perfectpullquote align=”full” bordertop=”false” cite=”” link=”” color=”” class=”” size=””] In a big development in Vijay Mallya extradition case,UK Home Secretary Sajid Javid today has signed the order to extradite Mallya to India. Mallya now has a 14-day window to appeal to a higher court. According to multiple sources, the entire procedure to bring back Mallya to India may take at least 7-8 months if he uses all his legal options. The UK Home Office confirmed that Sajid Javid — having carefully considered all relevant matters — signed the order on Monday, February 4. Vijay Mallya was facing charges of fraud, money laundering and violation of Foreign Exchange Management Act (FEMA). The 62-year-old liquor baron has also defaulted to the tune of Rs 9,000 crore. Westminster Magistrates’ Court (on 10 December) sent the case of Vijay Mallya to the Home Secretary for a decision on whether to order extradition. [/perfectpullquote]

There’s not been a legal reason why he shouldn’t be extradited. There’s no particular political reason why he shouldn’t be. So, he will be extradited. As we’ve pointed out before:

[perfectpullquote align=”full” bordertop=”false” cite=”” link=”” color=”” class=”” size=””]No, again this is not to prejudge the issue, no one is saying that he’s guilty of anything. Only that, well, gosh aren’t these interesting events? Yes, looks like there should be a trial to get to the bottom of it all. And if there’s going to be a trail then the defendant should be there, no?

Thus Vijay Mallya should be extradited to India on that warrant.[/perfectpullquote]

Whether Mallya’s guilty of anything at all is entirely another matter. But that some interesting stuff has been going on and we’d all like to know if any of it amounted to criminality, whether Mallya was even aware or involved, yes, we should find out. Thus the extradition should go ahead.