London: A UK high court on Monday denied embattled businessman Vijay Mallya permission to appeal against his extradition order to India to face alleged fraud and money-laundering charges amounting to ₹9,000 crore.
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 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. If a renewal application is made, it will be listed before a High Court judge and dealt with at a hearing," the spokesperson said.
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.
Now that the “judge on papers" application has been rejected by Judge Davis, Mallya has the option to submit for a “renewal". 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.
Monday's development came days after he offered to curb his living expenses to pay back debt his defunct Kingfisher Airlines owes banks in India.
Mallya’s lawyers have told State Bank of India, which is among lenders owed £1.142 billion ($1.5 billion) by his defunct Kingfisher Airlines, that their client is willing to cut his spending to £29,500 a month, SBI’s lawyers told a London court Wednesday. He is currently spending about £18,300 a week.
The banks are seeking to seize about £258,000 held in Mallya’s ICICI Bank UK Plc account. They have accused Mallya of willfully defaulting on debts of Kingfisher Airlines, which was founded in 2005 and folded in 2012.
Mallya has been based 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 "flashy" billionaire had a "case to answer" in the Indian courts.
