JOIN USUK home secy certifies Mallya's extradition
Home Secretary of the United Kingdom, Amber Rudd, has certified New Delhi’s request for the extradition of business tycoon Vijay Mallya to India, and forwarded the same to a court in London. The court will decide if an arrest warrant is to be issued.
Gopal Baglay, spokesperson of the ministry of external affairs, on Friday told journalists in New Delhi that India’s request had been certified by the British secretary of state for the home department and sent to the Westminster Magistrates’ Court for a district judge to consider issuing an arrest warrant against Mallya.
India had on February 8 issued a note verbale to the British High Commission in New Delhi, formally requesting Mallya’s extradition from the UK.
Mallya, however, still has many safeguards to take recourse to within the UK legal system.
India and the UK have a bilateral extradition treaty in place since 1993, but it is unlikely to help much in expediting the process. The district judge will issue the arrest warrant if he or she is satisfied that the case has “reasonable grounds for believing” that the offences Mallya has been accused of committing in India can be treated as an “extradition offence”. If a warrant is issued and Mallya is arrested, he will be brought before the court.
When the extradition hearing commences following the preliminary hearing, the judge must be satisfied that the offence he has been accused of committing in India will be considered a criminal offence even if it had been committed in the UK.
The judge will also have to determine that none of the statutory bars to extradition applies in Mallya’s case and the bars include rules against “double jeopardy”, the “absence of a prosecution decision” (whether the prosecution case is sufficiently advanced) and “extraneous considerations”.