Mallya declared ‘proclaimed offender’ by Indian court

Vijay Mallya, the former head of United Spirits, India’s largest spirits group (now controlled by Diageo) was this morning declared ‘proclaimed offender’ by a court in Delhi.

This was because he failed to appear on a charge of evading Enforcement Directorate’s (ED) summons in a Foreign Exchange Regulation Act (FERA) case relating back almost two decades.

Mallya was declared a proclaimed offender today for not appearing to answer charges that he paid $200,000 for displaying the Kingfisher logo in the Formula One World Championships in Europe in 1996, 1997 and 1998 without prior approval from the Reserve Bank of India. Mallya is now the principal of the Sahara Force India Formula One team.

Mallya was summoned and tried in the case. He was granted exemption from personal appearance by the Delhi court on December 20, 2000, but was revoked.

Before Christmas the court had been told by the ED that despite sending a summons to Mallya’s office and residences and publishing newspaper notices demanding that he makes an appearance before the court it could not ensure his presence.

Mallya fled to Britain in March 2016 just hours before an arrest warrant was issued for him following the £1 billion collapse of his ill-fated Kingfisher Airlines. Subsequently the Indian authorities issued international warrants for Mallya and he was arrested in London last summer.

Mallya is due in Westminster Magistrates Court next Wednesday (January 10) when the hearing on an application for his extradition to India will resume.

Mallya has consistently denied any wrongdoing and that the charges of false accounting and money laundering are politically motivated. He has been found in contempt of India’s supreme court for failing to provide full details of his global assets. That court has postponed sentencing him until he is brought before it in person.