Chris Parsons, Chair, UK India Business Council India Board, said he “sympathised” with the frustrations of India in getting fallen businessmen Vijay Mallya and Nirav Modi extradited from the UK and wished that the former British prime minister, Theresa May, was “more serious” about the issue than she was.

“I know that it was the case when prime minister Narendra Modi went to meet May. I think it was the first thing he raised... how to get Mallya back and there is a process that’s been gone through. Mallya is a clever guy and he’s got some very good lawyers finding ways in which he can stay in the UK. He is appealing and we will have to see whether he comes back. So, I sympathise with the frustration of India to have him back,” Parsons said in a media interaction on Thursday.

“I wish May had taken the issue more seriously than she did. It was clear that it was something very important to PM Modi and it would have been nice if she had acknowledged that rather than simply saying that this was a matter for the courts to decide. What she couldn’t do obviously was to step in and over-rule a legal process. That was the point. I think she could have dealt with it more sympathetically in terms of her understanding of how important it was to your PM,” Parson added.

That, according to Parsons, probably explains a little bit of May’s attitude. “We probably don’t see them as such big things as they are in India and necessarily understand how sensitive they are from an Indian point of view. I completely understand and get the frustrations in India around people being able to leave having potentially committed whatever they may have committed or not but not then being available to be tested in the courts in India,” he added.

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