Delhi court allows Engineer Rashid to attend Budget Session in custody
New Delhi (PTI): A Delhi court on Saturday granted custody parole to jailed Lok Sabha MP Engineer Rashid to attend the upcoming Budget Session of Parliament.
Custody parole entails a prisoner being escorted by armed police personnel to his place of visit.
Additional Sessions Judge Prashant Sharma passed the order, granting Rashid permission to attend the session that would begin on January 28, subject to conditions imposed earlier about travel costs and others.
Rashid's counsel Vikhyat Oberoi told the court that his client's appeal about travel costs is pending before the Delhi High Court.
In November last year, the court had granted Rashid custody parole to attend the Winter Session of Parliament on all dates.
It had also allowed him to attend the Monsoon Session between July 24 and August 4, 2025, in a similar manner.
In 2024, Rashid was granted interim bail to campaign for the Jammu and Kashmir Assembly polls.
The Independent MP has been lodged in Delhi's Tihar jail since 2019, after he was arrested by the National Investigation Agency under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act in a 2017 terror-funding case.
In the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, Rashid defeated National Conference's Omar Abdullah by over 2 lakh votes to win the Baramullah seat.
Let the Truth be known. If you read VB and like VB, please be a VB Supporter and Help us deliver the Truth to one and all.
Can't say when I'll return to India; legally barred from leaving UK: Mallya to Bombay HC
Mumbai (PTI): Fugitive businessman Vijay Mallya, facing multiple cases of fraud and money laundering, told the Bombay High Court on Wednesday that he cannot say when he will return to India as he is legally barred from leaving the UK.
In a statement submitted through his counsel Amit Desai to the high court, Mallya said he did not have an active passport after it was revoked and hence, he cannot give a definite date of return to India.
The statement was submitted after a bench of Chief Justice Shree Chandrashekhar and Justice Gautam Ankhad made it clear last week that it would not hear Mallya's plea against the order declaring a fugitive economic offender until he returns to India.
The court had then asked the former liquor to clarify whether or not he intended to return to India.
Mallya, based in the United Kingdom since 2016, has filed two petitions in the HC -- one challenging an order declaring him a fugitive economic offender and the other questioning the constitutional validity of the Fugitive Economic Offenders Act.
The 70-year-old liquor baron is accused of defaulting on multiple loan repayments of several thousand crores and facing money laundering charges.
The businessman, in his statement to HC, said he cannot give a definite date for his return as he does not have his Indian passport, which was revoked by the government in 2016, and also because there are orders of courts in England and Wales that prohibit him from leaving the country.
"Mallya is not permitted to leave or attempt to leave England and Wales or apply for or be in possession of any international travel document. In any event, the petitioner is unable to precisely state when he will return to India," Desai read out the statement in the court.
The senior counsel reiterated that Mallya's presence was not required in the country for the court to hear his pleas against the fugitive tag and the provisions of the Act.
"If he (Mallya) were to appear in India, then all these proceedings would be rendered irrelevant as the statute says that once the offender appears in the concerned court of law, then all these orders would be set aside," Desai told the court.
The bench directed the Union government to file its reply to Mallya's statement and posted the matter for further hearing next month.
Mallya was declared a Fugitive Economic Offender in January 2019 by a special court hearing cases under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA).
The businessman left India in March 2016.
