The Supreme Court on Monday sentenced fugitive liquor baron Vijay Mallya, holed up in London, to four months’ imprisonment and ordered him and his three US-based children to return $40 million, which was contemptuously siphoned out by Mallya, within four weeks with 8% interest. More than five years after he was found guilty of contempt charges, a bench of Justices U U Lalit, S R Bhat and P S Narasimha said it was proceeding to sentence him in absentia since the contemnor (Mallya) neither showed remorse nor tendered any apology.
He left India in 2016 after defaulting on debts of more than $1bn, but denied fleeing the country. In 2018, a court of London ruled that he could be extradited from UK to India to face charges here. Last year, he lost his final appeal against his extradition at the High court of London. Although, he still believed to be living in London. He faced numbers of charges related to alleged financial irregularities at Kingfisher Airlines.
