Mallya has no change of heart, law is catching up: BJP
New Delhi, June 27 : The BJP on Wednesday said Vijay Mallya has had no change of heart and he was not willing to clear his loans as the law was catching up with the fugitive liquor baron.
"This is not a change of heart that he wants to repay the money (to banks) but the fact is that the law is catching up with those who felt entitled to play with the law," spokesperson Sambit Patra told the media.
Mallya, facing a Rs 9,000 crore Kingfisher Airline loan default case, on Tuesday made public a letter he wrote to Prime Minister Narendra Modi in 2016 saying he wanted to pay up his dues but had been made the "poster boy" of bank default.
Patra said the corrupt with 'benami' (unaccounted) properties were feeling the heat as the government was bringing in strict laws like the Fugitive Economic Offenders Bill and Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code.
He compared the letter by Mallya to Modi with the one the tycoon had written to Manmohan Singh when he was the Prime Minister in 2011 and said while the letter to Modi expressed his unhappiness, the one to Singh thanked him for extending support.
"In his letter to Modi, Mallya said he was unhappy due to CBI, SFIU and ED investigating his case making him a poster boy of bank defaults and public anger. But the one to Manmohan Singh thanked him for facilitating a loan of Rs 550 crore," Patra said.
The BJP leader said the Congress gave him loans but the BJP was working to recover it by seizing his properties and this was making him unhappy.
"Mallya has travelled a long way from the king of good times during the UPA era to becoming the poster boy of bank default and corruption," he said.
Patra questioned Congress President Rahul Gandhi, whose brother-in-law Robert Vadra had been charged with tax evasion. The Income Tax department had served Vadra and his company Sky Light Hospitality a notice to pay Rs 25 crore.
Vadra had disclosed an income of Rs 37 lakh in 2010-11, while a re-evaluation by the IT department said the total income for the financial year was Rs 43 crore.
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US SC rejects 26/11 attack accused Tahawwur Rana’s plea seeking stay on his extradition to India
New York, Apr 7 (PTI): The US Supreme Court has rejected 26/11 Mumbai terror attack accused Tahawwur Rana's appeal seeking a stay on his extradition to India, moving him closer to being handed over to Indian authorities to face justice.
Rana, 64, a Canadian national of Pakistani origin, is currently lodged at a metropolitan detention centre in Los Angeles.
He is known to be associated with Pakistani-American terrorist David Coleman Headley, one of the main conspirators of the 26/11 attacks. Headley conducted a recce of Mumbai before the attacks by posing as an employee of Rana’s immigration consultancy.
Rana had submitted an ‘Emergency Application For Stay Pending Litigation of Petition For Writ of Habeas Corpus' on February 27, 2025, with Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States and Circuit Justice for the Ninth Circuit Elena Kagan.
Kagan had denied the application earlier last month.
Rana had then renewed his ‘Emergency Application for Stay Pending Litigation of Petition for Writ of Habeas Corpus previously addressed to Justice Kagan’, and requested that the renewed application be directed to US Chief Justice John Roberts.
An order on the Supreme Court website noted that Rana's renewed application had been “distributed for Conference” on April 4 and the “application” has been “referred to the Court.”
A notice on the Supreme Court website Monday said that “Application denied by the Court.”
Rana was convicted in the US of one count of conspiracy to provide material support to the terrorist plot in Denmark and one count of providing material support to Pakistan-based terrorist organisation Lashker-e-Taiba which was responsible for the attacks in Mumbai.
New York-based Indian-American attorney Ravi Batra had told PTI that Rana had made his application to the Supreme Court to prevent extradition, which Justice Kagan denied on March 6. The application was then submitted before Roberts, “who has shared it with the Court to conference so as to harness the entire Court’s view.”
The Supreme Court justices are Associate Justice Clarence Thomas, Associate Justice Samuel A. Alito, Jr., Associate Justice Sonia Sotomayor, Associate Justice Elena Kagan, Associate Justice Neil M. Gorsuch, Associate Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh, Associate Justice Amy Coney Barrett, and Associate Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson.
In his emergency application, Rana had sought a stay of his extradition and surrender to India pending litigation (including exhaustion of all appeals) on the merits of his February 13.
In that petition, Rana argued that his extradition to India violates US law and the UN Convention Against Torture "because there are substantial grounds for believing that, if extradited to India, the petitioner will be in danger of being subjected to torture."
"The likelihood of torture in this case is even higher though as petitioner faces acute risk as a Muslim of Pakistani origin charged in the Mumbai attacks,” the application said.
The application also said that his “severe medical conditions” render extradition to Indian detention facilities a “de facto" death sentence in this case.
The US Supreme Court denied Rana's petition for a writ of certiorari relating to his original habeas petition on January 21. The application notes that on that same day, newly-confirmed Secretary of State Marco Rubio had met with External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar.
When Prime Minister Narendra Modi arrived in Washington on February 12 to meet with Trump, Rana’s counsel received a letter from the Department of State, stating that “on February 11, 2025, the Secretary of State decided to authorise” Rana’s "surrender to India,” pursuant to the “Extradition Treaty between the United States and India”.
Rana’s Counsel requested from the State Department the complete administrative record on which Secretary Rubio based his decision to authorize Rana’s surrender to India.
The Counsel also requested immediate information of any commitment the United States has obtained from India with respect to Rana’s treatment. “The government declined to provide any information in response to these requests,” the application said.
It added that given Rana’s underlying health conditions and the State Department’s findings regarding the treatment of prisoners, it is very likely “Rana will not survive long enough to be tried in India".
During a joint press conference with Prime Minister Modi in the White House in February, President Donald Trump announced that his administration has approved the extradition of "very evil" Rana, wanted by Indian law enforcement agencies for his role in the 26/11 Mumbai terror attacks, "to face justice in India”.
A total of 166 people, including six Americans, were killed in the 2008 Mumbai terror attacks in which 10 Pakistani terrorists laid a more than 60-hour siege, attacking and killing people at iconic and vital locations in Mumbai.
