NEW DELHI: Vijay mallya He can only be extradited to India once an “additional legal problem” is resolved in the UK, the acting British High Commissioner said on Tuesday.
In briefing the media, Jan Thompson said that while it was not possible to prove a precise timeframe on extradition, the UK was trying to resolve the “confidential” issue as quickly as possible.
Reports have said that Mallya has applied for asylum in the UK as a means of escaping prison sentence in India.
“I think you probably already know, because we’ve said it several times, there is another legal issue that needs to be resolved before we can extradite Mr. Mallya.”
The extradition, he said, had been ordered some time ago, but it would be “difficult for me to comment on it in a very substantive way” because it is a legal matter, he added.
The extradition proceedings against Mallya concluded in May after the UK High Court rejected his request to address the UK High Court not to send him back to India. However, news reports said that secret procedures, an asylum application in the UK, had delayed his departure.
“But extradition cannot take place until that particular legal problem is resolved. It is a confidential matter, I cannot say more about it. Nor can I estimate how long it will take to resolve it, but what I can is that we are trying to resolve the problem as quickly as possible, “Thompson said.
The MEA here had said that India was not part of the confidential legal matter that kept Mallya in the UK.
Meanwhile, Thompson said the UK government is working on an integrated review of its foreign and strategic policies, placing the Indo-Pacific as a main focus area.
The next two years will be important for India-UK relations, he said. In 2021, the UK will take over the chairmanship of the G-7 and host COP 26. Health and climate change, Thompson said, will feature prominently in the UK-India engagement.
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