New Delhi: Even as the Indian government is set to soon get its hands on Mumbai-attack convict Tahawwur Rana, there are several high-profile fugitives like Vijay Mallya, Nirav Modi and Mehul Chokshi whose extraditions are stuck for years.
Last week, the US Supreme Court rejected Rana’s final plea in which he challenged his deportation to India. The Canadian citizen of Pakistani origin is wanted for his alleged involvement in the 26/11 terror attack that killed 174 people and injured over 300 others.
While the approval is being awaited from the office of the US Secretary of State for bringing back Rana, the cases of Nirav Modi, and Vijay Mallya whose extraditions are stuck in the “final stages”.
Fugitive businessman Vijay Mallya’s extradition is also stuck in its “final stage” for the last five years, after he lost his appeal against the extradition in a UK court and was also refused leave to appeal to the UK Supreme Court in 2020.
Mallya, a former Rajya Sabha member, is accused of fraud and money laundering to the tune of Rs 9,000 crore. He had fled to the UK in 2016. Four years on, the United Kingdom High Court had dismissed his plea against extradition. Mallya was arrested in 2017 by the UK authorities, but was granted bail.
However even as the final decision will be taken by the UK Home Secretary, there is another legal issue that needs to be solved before without which the extradition cannot take place, according to the British High Commission, as ThePrint reported in June 2020.
Since, India has been in talks with other nations where the fugitive tycoon is believed to have properties in case he visits or moves to any of them.
Nirav Modi, a fugitive diamond merchant who is accused in the Rs 11,000-crore Punjab National Bank (PNB) fraud case, lost his last legal appeal in 2022, against extradition to India. However, Modi had also appealed for political asylum to the UK government.
He had moved these requests in 2018 after fleeing that same year even as the Enforcement Directorate (ED) sought his extradition in connection with the fraud case.
The businessman was arrested in the UK in March 2019 and is reported to be in the Thameside prison in Greenwich without bail. The UK Home Secretary had ordered his extradition in 2021 April, but he had gone on to challenge it in the courts.
In fugitive diamantaire Mehul Chokshi’s case, the Interpol in November 2022 dropped his name from the Red Notice list that was issued in 2018. The Red Notice is issued to identify the location and provisionally arrest a person who is awaiting extradition. Chokshi, the uncle of Nirav Modi, is also wanted in the PNB case.
The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) had appealed for the restoration of the Red Notice against Chokshi. In February 2018, it booked Choksi who faces multiple other first information reports (FIRs) lodged by the agency. He had fled India in January 2018.
The Indian government had earlier reached out to the authorities in Antigua and Barbuda, as the fugitive diamantaire had taken its citizenship in November 2017.
In May 2021, Chokshi was detained and arrested in Dominica over illegal entry but was granted bail. His lawyers claimed that he was honey trapped and abducted by Indian authorities from Antigua and Barbuda. The charges of illegal entry against him were dropped by the Dominican authorities in May 2022. The CBI had filed for his extradition to Antigua and Barbuda in August 2018.
Meanwhile, Chokshi’s appeal against the Indian government in UK courts is seen as an attempt to secure a favourable order to hinder his already complicated extradition from Antigua and Barbuda. His appeals against extradition are also pending in Antigua and Barbuda where he claims that the Indian government hasn’t probed his alleged abduction.
(Edited by Tony Rai)
Also Read: ‘Misplaced, mistaken’. How US govt countered Tahawwur Rana’s bid to avoid India extradition in court
