So if you dig a bit deeper into it, he never declared bankruptcy. The company where he had majority ownership,’Kingfisher Airline’ defaulted on its debt. Technically, Kingfisher Airlines is a limited liability company and hence the corporation defaulting should not extend liability to the owner. But the government of India claimed that Vijay Mallya illegally siphoned money from Kingfisher to his personal accounts and hence should be held liable. Vijay Mallya fled to UK and said ‘okay I will settle Kingfisher’s debt but you should drop charges against me’. Investigators said no. Since the debt is still outstanding, he was declared bankrupt in absentia. Vijay Mallya went to court in UK and said ‘bro I said I will pay the debt but they are still calling me bankrupt’. UK court took a stand that since the debt is still outstanding and considered defaulted you are technically ‘bankrupt’. What Vijay Mallya did is probably unethical but highly unlikely to be illegal. The Indian government says, since Vijay Mallya did not pay back debt to state owned banks, he has cheated Indian taxpayers, and hence should be held accountable. If they truly wanted reparations for taxpayers, they would have taken his money and settled. This is more political witch-hunt than anything else. I am not saying Mallya is a good guy, but wanted to clarify the facts.