New Delhi: Liquor baron Vijay Mallya, who is wanted in India for defaulting on loans worth Rs 9,000 crore, has been arrested for a second time this year in London, according to state broadcaster Doordarshan.
He has been arrested under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act, said sources.
The details are awaited but according to reports, his arrest may be procedural and a bail order may be in place.
Mallya has repeatedly refused to appear before courts and investigators in India since he secretly fled to Britain in March, 2016, after defaulting on loan payments to state-owned banks and allegedly misusing the funds.
Mallya has been rejecting allegations by investigation agencies that he diverted most of the Rs 6,000 crore borrowed from a State Bank of India-led consortium of lenders as fabricated and baseless. This is the second arrest this year. He was arrested in April and was granted bail.
The Central Bureau of Investigation and the Enforcement Directorate, in their yet-to-befiled chargesheet, said the funds were allegedly laundered to shell companies in half a dozen countries.
Mallya, who fled to the UK from India in March 2016, said in January the allegations of fund diversion were a ‘joke’ and that he was getting used to “witch hunts coming from all directions with no legal basis whatsoever.”
With the fresh allegations, Mallya may find the going tough when his extradition case comes up for hearing in December.
Investigative agencies including the CBI and the ED recently completed the submission of probe evidence to the British Crown Prosecution Service.
(Agencies)
