India, UK to cut delay in extradition

But Vijay Mallya's case not discussed in meet

India and the UK on Wednesday agreed to improve the extradition process of fugitives, including liquor baron Vijay Mallya.

The issue was raised during the first home affairs dialogue between Home Secretary Rajiv Mehrishi and UK’s second permanent secretary (Home Office) Patsy Wilkinson.

While the ministry of home affairs maintained that individual cases like that of Mallya was not discussed, an official statement said both sides expressed satisfaction in matters relating to the extradition of wanted persons.

Briefing the media after the meeting, MHA advisor Ashok Prasad said individual cases do not come up at this level, where policies and procedures are fine-tuned. He said bottlenecks in the processes were discussed.

“The law is very clear. We cannot short-circuit the judicial process. In the UK, there are issues about death penalty and issues related to the quality of prisons, which will be raised by the defence ministry. The idea was to finish the process in a finite time,” Prasad said.

Both sides also agreed to formalise the arrangements on cooperation on the anti-terrorism mechanism, and strengthen mutual support to check cyber crimes.

They discussed the presence of Sikh militants in the UK and sharing of intelligence inputs in real time during the two-hour meeting.

Acknowledging the challenges of illegal migrants, the two countries decided to work together to ensure the smooth return of Indians overstaying in the UK, subject to nationality verification.
India also raised the contentious issue of visa-related difficulties faced by Indian students, skilled professional and dependents of Indian diplomats.

Prasad said the UK has assured that they will look into the matter, and mentioned it has been their constant endeavour to improve the visa process to promote people-to-people exchanges that exist between the two countries.