London, June 18: When Vijay Mallya walked into a book launch at the London School of Economics on Thursday night, Indian high commissioner Navtej Sarna "expressed displeasure" at the presence of India's erstwhile "King of Good Times" and walked out.

"When the high commissioner spotted Mallya in the audience he left the stage and venue immediately after making his comments and without waiting for the interactive session," said a statement from the ministry of external affairs, reissued by the Indian High Commission in London.

"Mallya was certainly not an invitee to the reception at the high commission for which the invitations were issued by the high commission, and was not present," the statement added.

It elaborated that "there were two clear segments - the book launch by UK minister Jo Johnson and discussion at LSE and later a reception at the high commission for select guests. The list of invitations for the LSE event was determined by LSE. They have written to the high commissioner that Mallya was not on their list. They have also said that the event was advertised widely through social media and attendees were not required to register in advance."

The author and The Telegraph columnist Suhel Seth was launching his book, Mantras for Success: India's Greatest CEOs tell you how to Win, which profiles 17 of India's top CEOs.

They include Ratan Tata, Mukesh Ambani, Anand Mahindra, Adi Godrej, Sunil Bharti Mittal, Kumar Mangalam Birla, Sanjiv Goenka, Deepak Parekh, Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw, Analjit Singh, Naresh Goyal, Kishore Biyani, PRS "Biki" Oberoi, K.P. Singh, Aditya Puri, Atul Singh, Rahul Sharma, Kunal Bahl, Pawan Munjal, Rajiv Memani and Aditya Ghosh.

Mallya is not on the list, though not so long ago he would probably have qualified as one of India's most colourful, flamboyant and apparently successful captains of industry. People always sought invitations to his parties in Cannes.

Seth told The Telegraph today he understood why the high commissioner had to leave since Mallya is wanted back in India to answer questions about his financial dealings - he owes Indian banks around Rs 9,000 crore. But personally Seth was not at all put out by Mallya's arrival at his book launch.

As a result of the fuss, "I'll sell even more copies," he laughed, adding "Mallya was a fantastic CEO. We've got to cut some slack, yaar. He's my pal - he's on Twitter. He was there with his daughter, not on some social outing."

On Twitter, Seth made the same point: "About @TheVijayMallya at my book launch. It was an open @SAsiaLSE & advertised on Twitter. No specific invitations. Anyone could attend."

That Mallya would turn up to the book launch at the LSE was not known even to Mukulika Banerjee, director of the South Asia Centre and associate professor in Anthropology.

The event was advertised widely by email and on social media, with the intention of filling the Old Theatre in the university's Old Building, Banerjee explained. It was also a public meeting so that anyone could turn up.

"You are invited to the launch of Suhel Seth's new book India's Greatest CEOs," read the notice. "The book will be launched by The Rt Hon Jo Johnson, Minister of State for Universities and Science, followed by a panel discussion including H.E. Navtej Sarna, Hon'ble High Commissioner of India to the UK and the author."

"This is a '100 Foot Journey Club' (#100FJC) event, jointly organised by the LSE South Asia Centre and the High Commission of India, London," the notice added.

Banerjee said: "We wanted to have as many people as possible - we were not sending out invitations. We put it out by email, Twitter, Facebook. It was a public event open to anyone."

"It was a short event - we began at 6.45pm and finished at 7.30pm," she went on. "We had a good audience though the theatre was not packed out."

She assumed Mallya arrived with his daughter just before the start. But it was the high commissioner who spotted Mallya first and was visibly irritated.

"None of us knew he was coming," commented Banerjee. "Apparently he has been going around attending parties and events."

"The high commissioner was annoyed," she said. "He leaned across and asked, 'Who invited this man? I'm sorry I have to leave.' And he left. I had to strain my neck to see Mallya."

Afterwards, 40 specially invited guests crossed the road to a reception at the high commission. Mallya did not seek to gatecrash the party.

It is certainly out of character for the high commissioner to walk out from a book launch. In fact, as an open-minded author himself, Sarna has gone out of his way to support Indian-origin writers.