He is living in luxury somewhere near London and is showing no signs of coming to India. And in a ritual that's happening every other day, one more warrant has been issued against the disgraced tycoon.
Adding to a list if warrants against him, the Karnataka high Court on Friday issued a bailable warrant against Vijay Mallya in a contempt of court case. Failure to repeatedly appear before the court on a case of violation of an undertaking given by Debt Recovery Tribunal has ended up in Mallya getting a warrant in his name.
“I am kind of getting used to these witch hunts coming from all directions with no legal basis whatsoever. Shows what Govt Machinery can do,” Mallya had tweeted on Thursday.
On Tuesday, the CBI had charged Mallya with fraud after arresting former chairman of IDBI Bank Yogesh Aggarwal and four other officials of the same bank and four executives of grounded Kingfisher Airlines.
This came after the CBI raided the offices of Mallya’s UB Group in connection with a money laundering case on Monday.
Those raids came after the Debt Recovery Tribunal (DRT), Karnataka, told the SBI-led consortium of banks to recover over Rs 9,000 crore of loans from Mallya, Kingfisher Airlines and associated companies in the Supreme Court.
Mallya has been in the UK since March 2016 and his passport was suspended by the External Affairs Ministry in April last year with India seeking his deportation.
However, the UK government has declined and said it will assist with his extradition.
And like we said earlier, this is not the first arrest warrant against Vijay Mallya.
In November 2016, a non-bailable warrant was issued against him in connection with a FERA case and a cheque bounce case by a Delhi court.
Another non-bailable warrant was issued by a special Mumbai court following a petition by the Enforcement Directorate.