Businessman and co-owner of the Force India Formula One team Vijay Mallya on Wednesday said that India has no grounds to extradite him from Britain and claimed that he was safe in the United Kingdom. “[I] would rather be safe than sorry as I don’t want to be at the mercy of some maverick in the government of India,” said Mallya, who accused political parties of making him a “political football”.
Mallya claimed that India has no evidence against him. “Let them come with whatever evidence they have – but I doubt if they have any evidence – and then let law take its own course,” he added, according to ANI.
Mallya’s comments come at a time when India has upped its efforts to extradite him from the UK. He owes more than Rs 9,000 crore to 17 banks. Mallya has been in UK since March 2016. “The government-owned banks are trying to hold me personally responsible for the failure of India’s largest airline and to repay their debts,” Mallya told Reuters in an interview at the launch of his team’s car. Mallya co-owns the team with Sahara Group founder Subrata Roy.
Meanwhile, he took to Twitter to blame the Indian media for “blasting him”. “Very unfortunate that Indian media do not share pride that an Indian entry into Formula 1 is so successful. Only focussed on blasting me,” he posted.
Mallya is embroiled in a number of cases in India. In November 2016, he was declared an absconder by a special Prevention of Money Laundering Act court. The same month, India had asked the UK, where Mallya has been residing since March 2016, to extradite the industrialist under the Mutual Legal Assistance Treaty as he owes around Rs 9,000 crore to 17 banks in India. On January 31, a special CBI court had issued a non-bailable warrant against Mallya.
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