Dissatisfied with the reply given by businessman and Member of Parliament Vijay Mallya, the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) has revoked his diplomatic passport.
Mallya will now have to be deported to India immediately by the United Kingdom (UK), where he is living at present. Interestingly, according to a media report, the 60-year-old appears on the electoral rolls in the UK with his country home ‘ladywalk’ listed as his recorded address.
“Having considered the reply furnished by Vijay Mallya to the show-cause notice, facts given by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) and Non-Bailable Warrant under the PMlA Act, 2002 issued by a special judge, Mumbai, the MEA has revoked the passport of Vijay Mallya,” External Affairs spokesperson Vikas Swarup, said on Sunday.
Mallya is facing money laundering charges and is accused of defaulting bank loans of over Rs9,400 crore. The revocation came two days after the MEA said it was exploring legal options regarding deportation of the liquor baron.
The MEA had suspended Mallya’s diplomatic passport on April 15 and issued a show-cause notice, asking why his passport should not be revoked. Though Mallya, through his lawyer had responded to the MEA’s show-cause notice, he ignored three summons issued by the ED, which is probing charges against him.
After the revocation of the passport Mallya’s stay abroad is illegal. “The future course of action will depend on various factors, as also the steps taken by the investigating agencies which now can issue a letter Rogatory. The grounds for deportation are primarily two. A NBW issued by the Mumbai court and revocation of the passport of the businessman,” sources said.
Mallya can approach the British authorities to grant him permission to continue his stay in that country. He can also move Indian courts challenging the revocation of his passport.
Mallya, who had refused to appear before the ED on three occasions when summoned between March 10 and April 2, had left the country on March 2 the day the consortium of 13 banks that had lent him money closed in on him by moving the Debt Recovery Tribunal.
Meanwhile, the beleaguered businessman, who strongly rejects any suggestion of wrongdoing and denies that he has deliberately absconded from India, has been living in a three-storey mansion called ladywalk in the village of Tewin in Hertfordshire, just over an hour’s drive north of london.
According to The Sunday Times, Mallya confirmed that “my official address in the UK is at ladywalk”, adding that he had supplied this information to the Indian authorities.
The pound 11.5 million mansion was bought from the father of British Formula One champion lewis Hamilton by a company with offshore links.
“The ownership structure of ladywalk is perfectly legal,” the newspaper quoted Mallya as saying.
The use of companies with offshore links to buy properties in Britain has come under increasing scrutiny as the practice can allow the real owner or beneficiary to remain hidden, sometimes for tax purposes.
Such companies collectively hold up to pounds 170 billion of UK property, much of it in london and the home countries.
British Prime Minister David Cameron is set to use an anti-corruption summit next month to demand more transparency on such future purchases.
Mallya, however, told the newspaper there was no “concealment or tax avoidance involved” and said that he has been a “British resident” since 1992.
The report notes that official documents list the owner of ladywalk as a limited liability partnership called ladywalk llP.
It has two members, including a company called Continental Administration Services, which is registered in St Kitts and Nevis, a Commonwealth country in the Caribbean regarded as a tax haven.
A loan to finance the property purchase in July 2015 was made by the Edmond de Rothschild private bank in Switzerland.
Official papers name the borrower as ladywalk Investments, a company incorporated in the British Virgin Islands, another tax haven.