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By:

Quaid Najmi

4 January 2025 at 3:26:24 pm

Come and face the law: HC to Vijay Mallya

Mumbai : In a strong sign of judicial impatience, the Bombay High Court asked the absconder liquor baron Vijay Vittal Mallya to ‘come back to India and face the law' instead of challenging it from London, where he is currently living.   A division bench of Chief Justice Shree Chandrashekhar and Justice Gautam Ankhad took exception to Mallya’s attempts to question the validity of the Fugitive Economic Offenders Act, 2018 without first submitting to or facing the Indian courts.   “You have to...

Come and face the law: HC to Vijay Mallya

Mumbai : In a strong sign of judicial impatience, the Bombay High Court asked the absconder liquor baron Vijay Vittal Mallya to ‘come back to India and face the law' instead of challenging it from London, where he is currently living.   A division bench of Chief Justice Shree Chandrashekhar and Justice Gautam Ankhad took exception to Mallya’s attempts to question the validity of the Fugitive Economic Offenders Act, 2018 without first submitting to or facing the Indian courts.   “You have to come back. If you cannot come back, then we cannot hear this plea,” the court said bluntly, during a hearing of Mallya’s petition challenging the proceedings that have declared him a fugitive economic offender and the constitutional validity of the FEO Act, 2018.   The court’s stern remarks followed an earlier order of Dec. 23 when it had directed Mallya to file an affidavit stating when he plans to return to India from the UK.   The court had made it clear that his challenge to the FEO Act would not be heard unless he first submitted to the court’s jurisdiction.   However, Mallya not only failed to specify his return date but also went ahead with his legal challenge without complying with the court directives.   “You are avoiding the process of the court, so you cannot take advantage of the present petition challenging the FEO Act,” said the court to Senior Advocate Amit Desai appearing for Mallya.   Representing the Enforcement Directorate (ED), Solicitor-General Tushar Mehta informed the court that Mallya had filed an affidavit claiming the banks were wrong to demand the money (dues) from him and was attempting to turn the case into recovery proceedings.   Mehta pointed out that Mallya had challenged the FEO Act, 2018, only after becoming a fugitive and while India was completing his extradition proceedings in London. He submitted that Mallya could come to India and argue everything but he should have faith in the Indian laws to claim equity.   “He can come and discuss everything – that ‘I am ready to pay, not ready to pay, not liable to pay’, etc. But he cannot ‘not’ trust the laws of this country and still invoke equity jurisdiction,” said Mehta emphatically.   When Desai argued that the nature of the statute permitted a hearing even in the petitioner’s absence, the court reminded him that a specific direction to state (Mallya’s) date of return was already on the record.   “In fairness to you, we are not dismissing it. We are giving you another opportunity,” said the bench, posting it for hearing next week.   The judges cautioned that if Mallya continued to ignore the court’s earlier order, they would be compelled to pass an order of ‘non-compliance’ if he failed to comply at the next hearing.   Time running out? The once flamboyant and self-proclaimed ‘King of Good Times’ Mallya, 70, slipped out of India in March 2016 following huge debts piling up after the collapse of the Kingfisher Airlines, with a consortium of 17 Indian banks claiming default of over Rs 9000-crore loans.   The two-time MP also faced multiple probes from the Income Tax Department, ED, Central Bureau of Investigation and in 2019, he was declared a fugitive economic offender, which he has challenged. However, Mallya has claimed that he has repaid Rs. 14,000-cr. to banks against the loan dues of Rs 6,200-cr.   India moved for Mallya’s extradition which was cleared but the process has been stuck in delays.

Choking Mumbai

For decades, Mumbai was perceived as a rare urban oasis, where the saline sweep of the Arabian Sea blunted the worst ravages of India's air pollution. That illusion has now been dispelled. A meticulous four-year study by Respirer Living Sciences (RLS), using data from its AtlasAQ platform, reveals the bleak truth that the city’s air is thick with pollutants all year round, with no ‘clean season’ left.


Mumbai’s annual average levels of PM10 (particulate matter ten microns or less in diameter) have consistently breached the national safety threshold of 60 micrograms per cubic metre (μg/m³). This is not merely a seasonal malaise tied to cooler winter months, as once assumed. Alarmingly, the city’s pollution levels persist even through the hot season, a time when improved atmospheric dispersion should offer natural reprieve.


Across the city - from Chakala in Andheri East to Deonar, Kurla, Vile Parle West and Mazgaon - pollution has become an unrelenting, ubiquitous presence.


The culprits are well known: traffic emissions from a burgeoning number of vehicles; unregulated dust from frenzied construction; industrial activity in and around the ports; and a conspicuous lack of dust control measures. Mumbai’s ceaseless growth now risks becoming a chronic liability.


Worryingly, the regulatory response remains sluggish. Mumbai’s urban planning continues to treat clean air as a peripheral concern, not a foundational necessity. Development plans rarely integrate environmental impact assessments in a meaningful way.


A sharper, citywide strategy is urgently needed. Dust suppression rules at construction sites must be enforced strictly, with financial penalties for violators and incentives for best practices. Traffic management systems should be overhauled to ease congestion and encourage the use of public transport. Expansion of clean, reliable mass transit network needs to be urgently prioritised. In addition, comprehensive real-time air monitoring at the ward level should be deployed, enabling authorities to respond to localised pollution spikes swiftly rather than relying on citywide averages that conceal dangerous hotspots.


Longer-term, clean air targets must be hardwired into the city’s master planning and transport policies. Green buffers along major traffic corridors, stricter emission norms for commercial vehicles and incentives for rooftop gardens and urban afforestation could all play a part. Industrial zones near port areas should be subjected to rigorous air quality compliance measures, not token self-certifications. Private developers and large infrastructure firms, often among the worst offenders, must be made stakeholders in the clean air mission through binding regulations.


Mumbai’s commercial dynamism - as a magnet for migrants, entrepreneurs and investors - depends not just on glittering skyscrapers but on something far more basic: the ability to breathe. Unless clean air becomes an unshakeable priority, the city risks suffocating its own future. For a metropolis that prides itself on its resilience against terror attacks, monsoon floods and economic shocks, the real test will be whether it can muster the will to fight an invisible, pervasive enemy slowly corroding the lives of its 20 million citizens.

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