Mallya's Lawyer: No evidence against Mallya, lack of appreciation by India

There is no evidence to justify India's case against controversial businessman Vijay Mallya, and the charges against him reveal a lack of appreciation of how incorporated companies function, his lawyer Clare Montgomery said on the second day of his extradition trial on Tuesday.

Denying all charges made by prosecution lawyer Mark Summers on behalf of India on Monday over the collapse of Mallya's Kingfisher Airlines, she said there was no evidence, only competing narratives of fraud versus business failure. No reasonable jury would be able to reach a safe conclusion that there had been a deliberate intent to defraud, she said.

The Indian government has requested Mallya's extradition from Britain, accusing him of fraudulently palming off the airline's losses onto banks by taking out loans he did not intend to repay. The case against him centres on a series of loans Kingfisher obtained from Indian banks, especially state-owned lender IDBI. The banks want to recover a total of about Rs 9,000 crore that the state says the defunct airline owes.