UK's New Govt Says They Won't Return Kohinoor, But Remain Silent On Returning Vijay Mallya

Amid attempts by the government to resuscitate India's claims over the Kohinoor diamond, Britain has declared yet again that there is no legal ground for restitution in the case of the famed diamond which continues to evoke passions in India.

indianexpress.com

The Narendra Modi government had told Supreme Court in April this year that the diamond could not be described as stolen as it was gifted to the British by Duleep Singh, the son of legendary Sikh king Maharaja Ranjit Singh.

Since then though, the government has sought to review its position keeping in mind the outrage in the country over what was seen as an attempt to relinquish India's claims over Kohinoor, which is currently on display at the Tower of London.

"It is the UK government's view that there aren't any legal ground for restitution of the diamond," said Alok Sharma, Britain's new minister for Asia and the Pacific who is currently on a 3-day visit to India.

vorsten.nl

Sharma's visit is the first high-level engagement between the two countries since the new Theresa May government took over in UK, following Britain's exit from EU.

During his visit, Sharma met MEA minister of state MJ Akbar, foreign secretary S Jaishankar and also road transport and highways minister Nitin Gadkari.

Speaking in Parliament in May, culture minister Mahesh Sharma, in a complete turnaround, announced that his ministry was working with MEA for a satisfactory resolution of the issue with UK. This was after the government received criticism for ignoring the fact that Duleep Singh was just a kid when he was forced to part with the diamond by Lord Dalhousie. Mahesh Sharma met foreign minister Sushma Swaraj over the issue last week and discussed taking up the issue with Britain.

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Sharma, however, chose not to comment on Kingfisher chief Vijay Mallya who escaped to London fearing prosecution for unpaid loans to Indian banks worth Rs 9000 crore. UK authorities had earlier said that he couldn't be deported to India but that they were still willing to help India under mutual legal assistance or the extradition treaty.

Sharma expresses satisfaction though that the 2 countries were working to make the extradition arrangement work. While the 2 countries have had an extradition treaty for the past 23 years, this has hardly resulted in the extradition of any high-profile offender. ``Both our governments need to understand each other better (on extradition),'' said Sharma, adding that there had been some progress in talks held in the recent past on extradition issues and that this had to be welcomed.

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Assuaging concerns in India over Brexit, Sharma said Britain still remained an "incredibly outward-looking" country and that it was not going to change.

India was Sharma's first port of call after he took over as minister for Asia and the Pacific. "I hope this will give a signal as to how seriously we take our relations with India," said Sharma. On recent developments in Kashmir, Sharma said Britain encouraged India and Pakistan to talk but added this was a matter for the 2 countries to come to a conclusion on.