Despite having made The Sunday Times Rich List as one of Britain’s wealthiest Asian businessmen and owning a multi-million pound property portfolio, tycoon Virendra Rastogi has been given free legal aid worth more than £5 million, paid for by taxpayers.

The fraudulent businessman was awarded the multi-million legal defence because, during his six-month trial, his assets were frozen, even though he was living in a £6 million seven-bedroom flat in Mayfair and numerous properties in India at the time of his court appearances, according to the Daily Mail.

The total amount of legal aid given to Rastogi totalled £5.17 million, with over £3 million paid to his solicitors and £1.9 million to his barristers.

After earning £4.1 million in five years between 1996 and 2001, Virendra Rastogi, 44, was jailed for fraud back in 2008 and has since been declared bankrupt.

In 2002, the Serious Fraud Office began investigating the multi-billion business for which Rastogi was the Chief Executive, after it made unprecedented sums of cash from numerous metal trading firms.

After failing to pay a £20 million confiscation order to pay victims of his fraud, last month Judge Michael Snow at Westminster magistrates’ court ordered Rastogi to serve an extra seven years in jail, in addition to his original nine-and-a-half year sentence which was ordered in 2008.

Senior lawyers from the Criminal Bar Association have highlighted their concerns about the size of these legal hand-outs, calling for a review of legislation.

The Daily Mail further reported comments from Max Hill, Chairman of the Criminal Bar Association, who voiced his concerns about the size of these legal hand-outs, calling for a review of legislation.

He said: “Too many wealthy people are receiving legal aid.

“If this man hadn’t been declared bankrupt, he would still have received legal aid as his assets would have been under restraint and he would have been deemed to have no money — even though there were vast sums available.

“The Government cannot go on denying the truth that providing legal aid in these sort of cases is unnecessary and wrong.”