Vijay Mallya, Subrata Roy, Nirav Modi, and Ramalinga Raju— these are the four Bad Boy Billionaires of India

The Gujarati-Indian luxury diamond jeweller Nirav Modi is currently lodged in a UK jail and is fighting against his extradition to India. Modi in 2018 was accused of defrauding the Punjab National Bank for a whopping ₹28,000 crore.

Modi conspired with the PNB officials at Brady House branch in Mumbai to obtain fraudulent Letters of Undertaking (LoU) for making payments to overseas suppliers.

He left India in 2018 along with his relatives to escape legal proceedings. It was earlier claimed that Modi was living in Hong Kong. However, a video later went viral in June the same year, which revealed that Modi was in the UK and had applied for asylum on the grounds of “political persecution.”

In the recent development to his case, the UK court has agreed on the timetable for Modi’s extradition trial scheduled between September 7 and September 11. The court will deliver the judgement on Modi’s extradition trial after December 1.

The Indian government is currently chasing the liquor baron, Vijay Mallya for his extradition from the UK. The former head of United Breweries and United Spirits fell into trouble when his Kingfisher Airlines got grounded with a huge amount of unpaid loans to banks. Subsequent probes accused him of having diverted those loans and laundered more money.

The business tycoon, who was once known as the “King of good times” was famous for his lavish parties, opulent properties, owner of a cricket team Royal Challengers Bangalore, stake in Formula F1 Force India team, luxury yacht, and collection of vintage cars and the now-defunct 'Kingfisher Airlines'.

Now, he owes nearly ₹9,000 crore to various Indian banks and pretty much, the poster boy of India’s banking crisis.

The 72-year-old chairman of Indian conglomerate Sahara India Pariwar, Subrata Roy's story is the quintessential rags-to-riches one.

Roy went on to build an empire spanning across fields like finance, infrastructure & housing, media & entertainment, health care, education, hospitality, and information technology. He hobnobbed with the high and mighty and wielded political influence in India’s most-populous state, Uttar Pradesh.

At one time, even some of India’s iconic film stars and cricketers have been at his beck and call. The halo wore away and the empire crumbled as the country’s market regulator pulled him up for financial scam where he allegedly defrauded small investors of money to the tune of ₹25,000 crore.

Roy denied it and put up a brave front. At his trial, nearly all of Delhi’s most famous lawyers, across party lines, including some who went on to be ministers, represented him. But, the cookie had crumbled by then.

Roy was eventually released on parole from Tihar Jail when his mother passed away two years after his detention. In a recent development earlier this year, Roy claimed in the court that he had cleared most of the dues demanded by SEBI, and requested the court to remove the security personnel assigned to him.

It’s been over 11 years now since Byrraju Ramalinga Raju, the former CEO of outsourcing giant Satyam Computers admitted to falsifying revenues of the company to attract investors. The auditors certified that the company had $1.1 billion in cash, whereas they actually had just about $78 million.

Dubbed as “India’s Enron”, this scam sent shockwaves across the stock-market and India Inc. The biggest corporate scam in the country then led to upheaval in corporate governance norms. Raju in 2015, was convicted of corporate fraud, which led to the collapse of his outsourcing tech firm Satyam Computers. Raju is currently out on bail, and his sons oversee the family business.