Vijay Mallya’s Appeal Against His Extradition Order Listed For A Three-Day Hearing By UK High Court In February 2020

Defaulter Vijay Mallya's appeal in the UK High Court against his extradition order has been listed for a three-day hearing from February 11, 2020, a UK court has stated.

Recently, he had won a reprieve after a two-judge panel granted him permission to appeal against the extradition order of a lower court to face fraud and money laundering charges amounting to an alleged Rs 9,000 crore in India.

At a hearing on July 2, Justices George Leggatt and Andrew Popplewell had concluded that arguments would be reasonably made about some aspects of the prima facie case presented by the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS), on behalf of the Indian government.

Mallya's counsel, Clare Montgomery, had successfully contested the basis on which Chief Magistrate Arbuthnot had arrived at certain conclusions.

Arbuthnot had claimed the judge had been “plain wrong” in accepting some of the assertions by Indian authorities that Vijay Mallya had fraudulent intentions when he sought some of the loans for his now-defunct Kingfisher Airlines, or that he made misrepresentations to the banks to seek the loans and had no intentions to pay them back.

However, Mallya’s counsel Clare Montgomery had questioned the admissibility of some of the evidence produced during the extradition trial at Westminster Magistrates' Court in London.

The High Court judges accepted the broad arguments and directed her to submit a draft for the appeal to proceed to a full hearing, a time-frame for which has now been set for February next year.

Vijay Mallya had said he felt “vindicated” by the ruling and repeated his offer to pay back the money owed to the Indian banks.