According to reports, the Swiss government will soon hand over the details of Vijay Mallya’s Swiss Bank accounts to the CBI. The Supreme Court of Switzerland has rejected a petition of the fugitive businessman requesting to stop the move by the Swiss government.
The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) had submitted a request with Swiss authorities to block funds in four bank accounts belonging to Vijay Mallya, and also to provide the detail of the accounts. The Public Prosecutor of Geneva had agreed to that request in August last year. After this, the Swiss legal team of Mallya had moved the apex court of Switzerland to block the transfer of information, alleging that there were serious flaws in the probe against Mallya that is being conducted in India.
The lawyers of Vijay Mallya had contended that the case against him was led by CBI Special Director Rakesh Asthana, who himself was accused of corruption. It is to be noted that the same argument was made by Mallya’s lawyers in the UK court too during the hearing of his extradition trial. In India too, Prashant Bhushan had made the allegations against Asthana, petitioning against his appointment as special director of CBI, and Supreme Court of India had rejected the petition three times. The UK court also had rejected Mallya’s petition and allowed for his extradition to India.
Federal Supreme Court of Switzerland said that Vijay Mallya is not entitled to question the proceedings in India because he is not living in the country. Rejecting the petition, the court said “Natural persons who are not in the territory of the requesting state are not entitled to invoke defects in the foreign proceedings. Where the accused person resides in a third state and is the subject of a request for extradition by the requesting state, it is for the state of residence to consider the question of the regularity of the criminal proceedings.”
After this order by the Federal Supreme Court, which came in three judgements on December 12 and 13 last year, the Swiss authorities are free to provide the detail of the bank accounts of Vijay Mallya to India, and also to block the accounts as per India’s request.
According to reports, India has requested to block four bank accounts in Switzerland, one in the name of Vijay Mallya at Edmond de Rothschild (Switzerland) SA, a private bank, and three accounts with Compagnie Bancaire Helvétique (CBH) which are in the names of Drayton Resources, Black Forest Holdings and Harrison Finance, three companies belonging to Mallya.
