INDIAN BANK LOAN DEFAULTER HUB: UK

Indians started to lose their patience watching the news of loan defaulters like Nirav Modi, Vijay Mallya flying away to other countries with thousand crores of debt left in Indian banks. This is not something new. It’s been happening for decades. But, one common point among all the loan defaulters is that they all fly to the United Kingdom especially the stay in London. But, why is it happening so? How are the UK laws of extradition? Why is the UK giving shelter to those bank defaulter? We will know these through this article.

HOW MANY BANK DEFAULTERS FROM INDIA ARE THERE AT PRESENT IN UK?

We only know 2 names- Vijay Mallya and Nirav Modi. But, there are around 27 bank loan defaulters from India who are now under the UK shelter. They are Raymond Andrew, Ravi Shankara, Ajay Prasad Khaitan, Virendra Kumar Rastogi, Vijay Mallya, Nirav Modi, Anand Kumar Jain, Boopalan, JK Anuragala, Aha Rani, Jakkula Srinivas, Rishikesh Surendra, Patrick Charles, Karthik Venugopal, Rajesh Kapoor, Seema Kapoor, Tiger Hanif, Palaniappan Rajaratnam, Pavilose Fernandez, Lokendra Sharma, Shaik Sadiq, S Balakrishnan, Ritika Avasty, Arti, Chandan Sharma, and Rajkumar Patel.

WHY CAN’T UK SEND THEM BACK TO INDIA?

For understanding this you have to get a clear understanding of British rule in India. The death sentence of Nirbhaya rapists took almost 7 years to get implemented. It is because of the loopholes and long procedure of our judicial system. The same is with the Britain Judicial system. We Indians adopted almost all the concepts in the constitution and Judiciary from great Britain. So, in both countries, the Judicial system procedure is a bit slow.

If an Indian citizen commits a crime and flies to other countries so that he won’t get arrested. Then our government cannot directly get him back to India. To get him back to India, both countries should sign a treaty called “Extradition Treaty”. India signed the extradition treaty with Britain in the year 1992. Since then only 9 defaulters have been sent back to India. Britain’s legal system is the biggest hurdle in the process of extradition.

PROCESS OF EXTRADITION OF A CRIMINAL FROM BRITAIN TO INDIA:

After India sends a request for extradition to the UK Secretary of State, they decide whether to certify the request. After that, a court decides whether to issue a warrant for arrest. Thereafter, the person wanted is arrested and brought before the court. This is followed by a preliminary hearing and then an extradition hearing. If the court rules in favor of extradition, Secretary of State decides whether to order for it.

During the extradition hearing in a UK court, the judge must be satisfied that ‘the conduct described in the warrant amounts to an extradition offense, and meets, in almost all cases, the requirement that the conduct would amount to a criminal offense was to have occurred in the UK, and minimum levels of severity of punishment’.

WHAT IS HAPPENING IN THE CASE OF VIJAY MALLYA?

Vijay Mallya took a loan of Rs.1140 crores from different banks. In return, the enforcement directorate has ceased his assets worth Rs.807 crores. The Indian government issued an arrest warrant to Mallya and he is in his last trails of extradition in the London courts. The court rejected the final plea of Mallya and got ready to send him back to India. Mallya told the Indian government not to arrest him and in return, he will come back to India and will pay his loans. But, what he says is he will only pay the principal amount but not the interest amount which is also huge.

Concluding this, all the Indian bank loan defaulters from the UK will come back some or the other day but the judicial process is what helps them.

-KRISHNA (FRONTLINESMEDIA)