A political expert deposed by businessman Vijay Mallya’s defence during his extradition trial relied on flawed evidence to discredit Indian investigation agencies, the United Kingdom prosecution told a London court on Tuesday.

The prosecution also read out to the court an email from a researcher whose study Mallya’s defence had earlier cited to question India’s Supreme Court. The researcher wrote that Mallya’s lawyers had misinterpreted his study, PTI reported.

The Westminster Magistrates’ Court is currently hearing India’s case for extradition of the liquor baron. Mallya is wanted in India on charges of defrauding banks of Rs 9,000 crore. The businessman has been in the UK since March 2016. The arguments are likely to continue on Thursday, after a day’s break.

Prosecution questions political expert

Lawrence Saez, a politics professor, told the court on Tuesday that the impartiality of the Central Bureau of Investigation was questionable. He picked up the controversy around the appointment of Rakesh Asthana as the special director of CBI, and invoked a Supreme Court ruling that had called the agency a “caged parrot”. He cited memoirs of former CBI directors to show how investigations could be “interfered with”.

Saez is a professor at London’s School of Oriental and Asian Studies.

However, the Crown Prosecution Service, arguing for the Indian government, said the Supreme Court judgement that Saez had cited had led to the creation of the Central Vigilance Commission, which had “independent oversight over the CBI”.

“The commission does not feature anywhere in your report evaluating CBI’s independence,” said prosecution barrister Mark Summers, according to PTI. Saez’s views relied heavily on press reports and had ignored other sources, Summers said.

“People take experts like you seriously and would assume that you would not regurgitate press reports while evaluating your information,” Summers said. He cited a Supreme Court order that had said there was “no illegality” in Asthana’s appointment.

Saez still insisted that there are “serious issues regarding the independence of the CBI as a whole”. He said Mallya was being “unfairly persecuted on account of his high profile corporate persona” and being “unfairly targeted” by political parties trying to score points.

‘Misconstrued the findings’

Tuesday’s trial opened with Summers reading out an e-mail from a professor whose research Mallya’s defence had earlier cited. Shubhankar Dam of the University of Portsmouth wrote to the prosecution, saying Mallya’s lawyers had “misconstrued the findings” and had grossly misunderstood a study he co-authored.

During the trial, Mallya’s defence had deposed an expert on South Asian law who quoted Dam’s study to raise doubts about the neutrality of judges of the Indian Supreme Court. Dam, however, said in his email that he “reject[s] the defence’s understanding of the paper”, and described the Indian legal system as “fair and transparent”.

Dam said the study was based on a specific set of cases and trends that had “no relevance” to any trial involving Mallya.