London: Businessman Vijay Mallya, summoned by Enforcement Directorate in a money laundering case, remained cooped up over the weekend at his estate outside London without committing to a return date.
Mallya is learnt to be taking expensive legal opinion on the options open to him -- which would be known very soon as the ED wants him back in India on March 18.
Though he has tweeted, with typical swagger, that he is not an absconder and will comply with the law of the land, he stopped short of saying when he will be back in India.
Failure to return would lead to criminal prosecution and further to an extradition request to the British government by Indian authorities.
In the past such extradition requests have not succeeded in Britian with courts rejecting them even after they were were approved by the government. The grounds for rejection in such cases were always about human rights, but it is unlikely a court would be convinced that Mallya faces torture on his return to India.
The liquor baron's 'Ladywalk' country home is near the small town of Tewin, half an hour's drive from north of London.
Mallya, according to sources, left for London by the 9W122 Delhi-London Jet Airways flight at 12.54 pm on March 2, days before a consortium of banks approached the Supreme Court for his passport to be impounded.
He is facing legal proceedings for alleged loan defaults by his group to the tune of over Rs 9000 crore.
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