No Intention Of Becoming A Place For Those Seeking To Evade Justice: UK Min On Mallya, Nirav Modi’s Extradition

UK Security Minister Tom Tugendhat was on a three-day visit to India from August 10-12 to attend the G20 anti-corruption ministerial meeting in Kolkata.

The United Kingdom has no intention of becoming a place where those who are seeking to evade justice can hide, said British Security Minister Tom Tugendhat as India continues to push for the extradition of fugitive billionaires Vijay Mallya and Nirav Modi. "We both (the UK and India) have legal processes that must be gone through. But the UK government is absolutely clear, we have no intention of becoming a place where those who are seeking to evade justice can hide," he told PTI in an interview. 

Without citing any specific case, the UK minister said that the legal processes must be adhered to in matters relating to extradition, during his three-day visit to India from August 10-12 primarily to attend the G20 anti-corruption ministerial meeting in Kolkata.

His remark came as he responded to the question on India's persistent demand for extradition of a number of economic offenders including Mallya and Nirav Modi who are living in the UK.

Fugitive diamond merchant Nirav Modi is wanted in India to stand trial on charges of fraud and money laundering charges whereas Mallya is wanted in the country over a default of Rs 9,000 crore that was loaned to Kingfisher Airlines by several banks.

In Delhi, Tugendhat held meetings with External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar and National Security Adviser Ajit Doval, as per the report. 

The British Minister declined to share the details of his talks with NSA Doval but noted that the broad bilateral cooperation is focused on security of the two nations and the prosperity of the citizens.

"We're talking about the security of our two nations and the prosperity of our citizens, their ability to conduct their business at home and abroad," he said.

"But we're also talking about the challenges we face and we've both made it clear in different ways that the challenge of China is one that faces us both and we've seen incidents on your northern border, but we've also seen the way in which technology has changed and the way in which we need to address it as areas in which we need to have greater cooperation," he said.