PTI, LONDON: A defiant Vijay Mallya has confirmed his plans to initiate a lengthy appeal process against the UK government’s order to extradite him to face charges of fraud and money laundering amounting to nearly Rs 9,000 crores in India.
The 63-year-old embattled liquor baron’s extradition was approved by UK Home Secretary Sajid Javid on Sunday, boosting India’s efforts to bring back the fugitive businessman.
Mallya has two weeks to lodge a permission to appeal in the High Court after Javid signed off on his extradition order. Hours later, Mallya took to social media to confirm his plans to appeal against the decision.
“After the decision was handed down on December 10, 2018 by the Westminster Magistrates Court, I stated my intention to appeal. I could not initiate the appeal process before a decision by the Home Secretary. Now I will initiate the appeal process,” Mallya said in a statement on Twitter.
Once the application is made, the court will consider whether there are grounds for the appeal to be admitted and that in turn would trigger another set of hearings over the next few months in the Administrative Court, which is part of the UK High Court.
It could take months for the case to be heard as the court gets very clogged up and the whole process could take up to five or six months,” explained Sarosh Zaiwalla, Founder and Senior Partner of UK-based law firm Zaiwalla & Co.
