The hearings continued at the Westminster Magistrates’ Court in London on Tuesday in the case filed by the Indian government requesting that businessman Vijay Mallya be extradited back to the country.
“There is no evidence for the government to support the case they advance,” The Hindu quoted Mallya’s lawyer Clare Montgomery as saying.
The prosecution on Monday told the court that the liquor baron had misled IDBI Bank in India in 2009 about his company’s net worth. Mallya, prosecutor Mark Summers said on Tuesday, attempted to stash his money away when a consortium of lender banks recalled the loans. “These actions were not the actions of an honest person,” Summers said. The prosecution, he added, had outlined how there was a case against the businessman until proven otherwise, or a prima facie case.
Mallya’s lawyer said he did not pay processing fees to IDBI out of the loan he took from another bank. Montgomery said that the accusation that Mallya had lied to IDBI Bank was “extraordinary”, the Hindustan Times reported. She said that the beleaguered businessman used the loan amounts for benefit of his now-defunct company, Kingfisher Airlines. Therefore, she argued, that the Indian government’s claim that Mallya used the loans to meet expenses other than what they were intended for was false.
Montgomery asked if Mallya was dishonest, as the government had accused, or if it was a business failure. “Could a reasonable jury reach a safe conclusion that this was a deliberate plan to go to IDBI Bank to raise the money and default on that loan?” she asked.
When this question is asked, “you realise the government’s case cannot succeed,” Mallya’s lawyer told Chief Magistrate Emma Arbuthnot.
There are a number of allegations made by prosecuting authorities without any evidence, she added.
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