UK Deputy Prime Minister David Lammy said extradition matters between India and the United Kingdom are handled with seriousness but remain subject to independent judicial processes, when asked about Nirav Modi and Vijay Mallya during an exclusive interview with Times Now Group Editor-in-Chief Navika Kumar.
Responding to whether the issue came up during his meetings with Prime Minister Narendra Modi and National Security Advisor Ajit Doval, Lammy said: “Well, I've got to be careful as also alongside being Deputy Prime Minister, I'm also Secretary of State for Justice and Lord Chancellor in the United Kingdom. So I have to be very careful about any statements and any comment on particular cases and avoid that.”
He added, “But what I can say is that we take in our discussions about extradition methods and some of the issues that sit behind that, whether it's concerns with money or illicit finance or indeed concerns with extremism, we take those issues extremely seriously.”
Pressed on whether there had been movement forward, Lammy said, “These necessarily are judicial decisions. India is a great democracy. The UK is a great democracy. Sitting behind great democracies are independent judicial decisions that must appropriately be taken… free from political interference.”
Vijay 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 and has been based there since. Nirav Modi has been in a jail in London since his arrest there in 2019. The fugitive diamond merchant is wanted in India in the estimated USD 2 billion Punjab National Bank (PNB) loan scam case.
Lammy was in India for the AI Summit and praised the event, saying, “I congratulate India for pulling off a very successful AI Summit.” He highlighted growing cooperation, noting that 150 UK businesses are partnering with around 250 Indian organisations under a broader trade and tech framework.
On India’s transformation, Lammy said, “India has some of the most dynamic youth in the globe,” adding that he sensed “dynamism and that capability… and then there's a confidence and an ambition.”
Addressing anti-India extremist activities in the UK, he said, “Well, I condemn them and we dealt swiftly to deal with those who would seek to cross the line… to criminal damage,” adding that the UK takes extremism “very seriously indeed.”
Over the arrest of Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, Lammy said, "Two things I would say about this. The first is to say nobody in any democracy can ever be above the law and what we are seeing is that crystal clear that nobody is above the law. The second thing, of course, is that this is now a police investigation and as has been said by our Prime Minister, indeed as has been said by His Majesty, the law must take its course necessarily and that is the way that it should be."
"But the third thing I would want to emphasise are the victims. Let us keep in mind the victims of Epstein's crime. Let us keep in mind the power of men still in the global community to traffic women and girls, to treat them horrendously and the power that sits behind that and the victims of those crimes," he added.
Source: India Latest News, Breaking News Today, Top News Headlines | Times Now
