Vijay Mallya, the business tycoon who is involved in a money laundering case and was proclaimed an offender by a court in Mumbai, was seen at a book launch in the London School of Economics where the Indian envoy was also present on Saturday. The Ministry of External Affairs on Saturday reportedly said that the event wasn't organised by the government.
The book "Mantras for Success: India's Greatest CEOs Tell You How to Win" was launched at the event and is written by author Suhel Seth with journalist Sunny Sen.
Seth clarified that the event was an open one and Mallya just walked in. He was not invited to the program. He further tweeted that in the follow-up event held by the High Commission of India in London, Mallya was not invited and he did not attend it either.
Indian envoy Navtej Sarna reportedly left when he spotted Mallya at the event, expressing his displeasure over the liquor baron's presence.
Meanwhile, India is attempting to extradite Mallya as his company has Rs 9,000 crore outstanding loan, which he needs to repay to Indian banks. The British government's extradition process is very slow, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley was quoted as saying by the Press Trust of India on Saturday.
"British government has taken a position that if you enter the Britain with a valid passport, then we are not going to deport a person, you come in by way of extradition. And conventionally they have been very slow and reluctant in extraditing people...Well I only hope that the British government had realised that absconders in one jurisdiction can't make a heaven in another jurisdiction. This is not civility. And this is not certainly British civility," Jaitley said.
He also admitted that a mistake was made years ago when his loan was restructured when the Kingfisher Airlines was "bleeding."
In the meantime, misunderstandings seem to have broken out between the banks who were duped by Mallya. Standard Chartered had on Thursday accused State Bank of India and other lenders of colluding with Mallya in preventing a transaction between SCB and Diaego Plc in the Debt Recovery Tribunal (DRT). The SBI and other lenders denied the allegations. On the same day, SCB denied making such allegations against the SBI and other lenders.
"We wish to clarify that, contrary to the reports published in the media, Standard Chartered did not in any way allege, during Debt Recovery Tribunal proceedings, that there was a collusion of Banks with Mr. Mallya. The reporting in this instance was entirely incorrect," Ananth Venkat, managing director and regional head for International Corporates, ASEAN and South Asia region, Standard Chartered, said in a statement.
