With the extradition of Rana from the US to face trial in India for 26/11 has been a great legal and diplomatic victory for India. The same US court system which did not find Rana directly in the 26/11 attack in 2011, presided over the extradition of Rana more than a decade later. A commendable performance indeed. One would expect this would open the doors for successful extradition of others, the Government of India is waiting for. It is certainly not the replication of the Rana case. Extradition is complex and tricky game, with hundreds of processes and documentation moving parts,
If one of the moving parts goes haywire, you just find yourself in the most precarious of situations, with all the other efforts going down the drain. In the game of extradition the world is in black and white, it’s either yes or no. But the process and the parameters are subjective though made to look objective. In this cobweb of evidence, legality and also diplomacy, can you believe that jail conditions can become the main stumbling block in our journey to extradition, in such cases pending in the UK. But this is the way the rules based international order functions.
The news headline blares, “Assure the accused will not go to Tihar: UK Extradition Authority.” Does it speak volumes about the real situation in Tihar or is it a biassed copybook western viewpoint. Either way we need to sort it out before we taste extradition success in the UK. We would all be remembering the much touted reforms in the Tihar Jail, which turned out to be her most critical work for which she was awarded the Ramon Magsaysay Award. Nearly 30 years down the line the UK has requested sovereign guarantees from India.
What are these sovereign guarantees all about? This is regarding the treatment of extradited individuals, specifically concerning Tihar Jail and potential mistreatment. This is in the backdrop of the rejection of several extradition requests. The sovereign guarantee asked for is that any accused being sought to be extradited to New Delhi will not be kept in the Tihar Jail. Do we not feel ashamed about such caustic remarks in foreign courts? The advice comes in the backdrop of two back-to-back rejections of extradition requests by UK courts. The first of the two, was on Feb 27, UK High Court, rejected alleged arms dealer Sanjay Bhandari’s extradition. The latest one happened on April 11, pertaining to Virkaran Awasty and his wife Ritika.
THE WORLD OF SUCCESSFUL EXTRADITIONS, AS A WELL OILED MACHINE, IS NOWHERE NEAR FOR A VARIETY OF REASONS.
Sanjay Sahay
Have a nice evening.