Mallya, Modi & Choksi Coming Back to ‘Face Law’: FM Sitharaman

“One after other, everybody is coming back to this country to face the law of this country,” she said in the RS.

Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman

(Photo: PTI)

Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Thursday, 18 March, said that fugitive businessmen Vijay Mallya, Nirav Modi and Mehul Choksi are being extradited to India to face the law, according to PTI.

The government is pursuing the extradition of Mallya and Modi from the UK while Mehul Choksi is believed to be in Antigua and Barbuda.

Sitharaman made this statement while responding to a matter on the Insurance (Amendment) Bill, 2021 in Rajya Sabha.

“One after other, everybody is coming back to this country to face the law of this country," she was quoted as saying by PTI.

Mallya, who is in the UK since March 2016, is an accused in a bank loan default case of over Rs 9,000 crore involving his defunct Kingfisher Airlines. He is currently on bail on an extradition warrant executed three years ago by Scotland Yard.

Modi and Choksi who are accused in the Punjab National Bank scam involving fake guarantees to secure overseas loans, fled India in 2018.

Last month, Modi lost his legal battle against extradition as a UK judge ruled that he has to answer before the Indian courts.

Modi has two criminal proceedings against him with a CBI case relating to a large-scale fraud upon PNB through the fraudulent obtaining of letters of undertaking (LoUs) or loan agreements, and the Enforcement Directorate (ED) case relating to the laundering of the proceeds of that fraud.

The ED recently attached assets worth over Rs 14 crore belonging to the Gitanjali Group and its promoter and jeweller Choksi.

(With inputs from PTI.)