No Hint of Real Justice

With each passing day, it is getting clearer that Vijay Mallya, Rajya Sabha MP, has maged to elude justice and to make a mockery of what goes by the me of rule of law in the world’s largest democracy. Here is an MP who has maged to run up loans to the tune of Rs 9,431.65 crore with 13 banks and to default on repayments to all of them. Meanwhile both his diplomatic and persol passports have been revoked, and he is likely to be expelled from the Rajya Sabha two months before his term ends on June 30.  Even after all this, the government is unlikely to be able to get Vijay Mallya to India to stand trial for all his swindles. For some time, the revoking of his two passports is unlikely to have any effect on his ability to continue living in Britain. He may not be able to travel anywhere out of Britain, but a resident’s card that he had secured permits him to stay in Britain for some more time. Since Mallya has chosen not to reply to any of the summonses sent by the Enforcement Directorate, the only way of getting him to come to India may be to request the British government to withdraw his resident’s card and to compel him to leave that country. As usual, the cardil sin of the government has been its tendency to regard all MPs as being saints and therefore incapable of any wrongdoing regardless of all the experience we have had about the ability and propensity of lawmakers to be very eminent lawbreakers. In the case of Vijay Mallya, for all the years that he has been an MP, he has reported his liabilities to be “nil”. We now have a very typical case of an MP swindling 13 banks of Rs 9,431.65 crore and lying that he has no liabilities at all. Vijay Mallya has been able to get away with all the swindling and the untruths mainly because there has been no dearth of friendly officials who have been helping him to get away with his swindles, his lies and his huge unpaid loans. And all the while, people who are honest about lawbreaking lawmakers are warned of the dangers of telling the truth about MPs! How dishonest can the system get about lawbreaking lawmakers?