Sanjay Bhandari, U.K.-based arms consultant, declared fugitive economic offender-OxBig News Network

A Delhi court on Saturday (July 5, 2025) declared U.K.-based arms consultant Sanjay Bhandari a fugitive economic offender on an Enforcement Directorate (ED) plea, officials said.

The court issued the order under the provisions of the Fugitive Economic Offenders Act (FEOA) of 2018, they said.

The order has come as a shot in the arm for the federal probe agency as it will now be able to confiscate assets worth crores of rupees of Bhandari, whose chances to come to India have been virtually nullified after a U.K. court recently ruled against his extradition.

Fled to London

Mr. Bhandari, 63, fled to London in 2016, soon after the Income Tax (I-T) department raided him in Delhi.

The ED filed a criminal case against Bhandari and others under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) in February 2017, taking cognisance of the I-T department charge sheet filed against him under the anti-black money law of 2015.

The agency filed its first charge sheet against him in 2020.

Links with Robert Vadra being probed

It has also been probing Mr. Bhandari’s links with Robert Vadra, the businessman husband of Congress MP Priyanka Gandhi Vadra.

The ED filed a supplementary charge sheet in this case in 2023, alleging Mr. Bhandari “acquired” the 12, Bryanston Square house located in London in 2009 and got it renovated “as per the directions of Robert Vadra and the funds for renovation were provided by Robert Vadra”.

Mr. Vadra has denied owning any London property directly or indirectly. He has termed these charges a political witch-hunt against him and said that he is being “hounded and harassed” to subserve political ends.

Economic offenders

With this order, a total of 16 people, including liquor baron Vijay Mallya and diamond trader Nirav Modi, have been declared fugitive economic offenders by different courts.

The FEOA was brought by the Modi government in 2019 to bring to justice those people who have left India to evade the clutches of law after committing fraud with a benchmark value of at least ₹100 crore.

Concealing overseas assets

Mr. Bhandari, who was a resident in India for tax purposes in 2015, is also accused of concealing overseas assets, using backdated documents, benefiting from the assets not declared to the Indian tax authorities and then falsely informing the authorities that he did not possess any overseas assets. He, however, denies these allegations.

Mr. Bhandari’s lawyer, while opposing the ED move to declare him a fugitive offender, had claimed that his “client’s stay could not be called illegal in the U.K. as he has a legal right to reside in the U.K. and the GOI is bound by the judgment of the U.K. court… Bhandari is legally living there, and declaring him a ‘fugitive’ in that scenario is legally wrong”.

Mr. Bhandari’s assets worth about ₹21 crore have been attached by the ED under the PMLA.