I have personally been involved in the extradition process of a few criminals while I was in service, especially during my tenure in CBI. I can tell you from my personal experience, extradition is a very tedious process. It is time-consuming and requires so many formalities to be completed. Having been through the process, I can tell you that it can be very frustrating experience looking at the formalities involved. And, on many occasions, the country from which extradition of a criminal is sought refuses to extradite the offender.
For example, have a look at this link from the Ministry of External Affairs website, which shows that in last 16 years (from 2002 to 2018), only 65 persons have been extradited by all countries to India. Most of these are for murder and terrorist offences, and most of them were extradited by UAE.
Likewise, as per this reply given to a Lok Sabha question in 2016, about 110 extradition requests were pending in 2016; however, it is not clear whether this list is an exhaustive list or relates to offenders from only a specific agency, such as NIA.
If you go through the procedure laid down in the Extradition Act, 1962, you can get an idea as to how lengthy the extradition process can be. It is more or less like a regular trial and may take long time. Other countries have their own Extradition laws. Even in a country like U.K. in which justice delivery is supposed to be much faster than India, the actual extradition proceedings are going on for more than a year now for extraditing Vijay Mallya; and one does not know how much more time would be taken to complete these proceedings; and, thereafter, there may be (a series of) appeals which may take further time. Persons like Vijay Mallya and Nirav Modi have so much of money that they can hire best of lawyers in foreign countries and delay the process of extradition or completely stall such extradition. Moreover, extradition is also partly a political decision of the Government of the concerned country.
Let me now come to the case of Nirav Modi. He had left India by the time PNB started taking action and CBI registered its case against PNB scam.
Initially, there were difficulties even in locating him as to in which country he is. For example, see this news report that shows that the Indian authorities were in dark about the whereabouts of Nirav Modi. Likewise, as per this news report, Enforcement Directorate (ED) was trying to take help of Interpol to locate Nirav Modi. Subsequently, of course, Nirav Modi has been located to be in Hong Kong. See this news report which discloses that India had made a request to Hong Kong authorities for making a provisional arrest of Nirav Modi.
In this regard, let me point out that the Interpol Secretariat General (IPSG), France which is the Headquarters of Interpol in Lyon, France, has put in place a system of notices to locate the fugitives. In order to trace a fugitive criminal, who might have left his/her country, an Interpol Red Corner Notice is to be issued through IPSG at Lyon, France, based on an arrest warrant issued by the competent judicial authority of the requesting country. The procedure for issuance of Red Corner Notice is that upon receipt of a request from the respective law enforcement agency of the requesting country, the National Central Bureau of that country forwards it to IPSG, Lyon, France. The IPSG then takes a decision on publication or non-publication of this Red Corner Notice based on the degree of criminality / nature of the offence and the INTERPOL Constitution. After issuance, the Red Corner Notice is transmitted to all member countries who in turn forward it to their immigration / border control authorities. These authorities then locate / detain / identify such individual depending upon provisions of their domestic laws and inform the requesting country and / or authorities concerned for further necessary action. The domestic legal provisions differ from country to country and while some countries have accorded legal sanctity to Red Corner Notice, others have not done so. Once the fugitive is located on the basis of the Red Corner Notice, the concerned law enforcement agency (of the requesting country) is required to send a request for provisional arrest of the fugitive which is to be followed by a request for extradition of that person, duly accompanied by all necessary documents, to the concerned country through diplomatic channels.
It can be seen that not all countries will comply with such a red corner notice (RCN) or a request for provisional arrest. Due to this, the fugitive offender can keep moving from one place to another, if the country concerned does not comply with such notice. This is generally a political decision of the concerned Government.
There is also a system of sending a “diffusion form” instead of a “red corner notice” directly to the country wherein location of the fugitive offender is already known.
It is also noteworthy that as per media reports, passport of Nirav Modi has already been revoked in February itself. Once the passport is revoked, the country wherein such fugitive offender is present, should normally deport him back to India. Deportation is a much simpler and faster process. But, it is easier said than done. My personal experience has been that on most occasions, countries do not deport such (rich) people even after their passports have been revoked by Indian authorities. Again, it is generally a political decision. A country can refuse (or ignore) to deport a person.
Once deportation is refused or is ignored despite the revocation of passport, the next option is only to make a formal request for extradition. However, as I mentioned above, extradition is a very tedious process and it takes long time, generally.
In the case of Nirav Modi, it appears from the media reports that while India has made a request to Hong Kong for a provisional arrest of Nirav Modi, a formal extradition request is yet to be made. It is going to be a long drawn process.
But, even if a red corner notice is accepted by Hong Kong authorities, or even if a diffusion form is accepted by it (if it has been sent, since media reports do not show any such thing), the movements of Nirav Modi can at least be stalled and he can be immobilized to a single country. But, there is no information in media about this, as far as I understand.
Also note that Hong Kong is controlled by China. We don’t have too much political capital vis-à-vis China. Look at how China has been blocking Indian request to UN of declaring Pakistani terrorist Masood Azhar as a global terrorist, or blocking India’s entry in NSG. To facilitate a smooth Modi visit to China recently, there were media reports suggesting that India had to restrict certain activities of Dalai Lama. It is generally a give-and-take in foreign relations. So, one does not know what China seeks in return for extraditing Nirav Modi. This may perhaps be the reason why Nirav Modi might have deliberately chosen Hong Kong as the place to hide.
Please try to appreciate that a person who has allegedly defrauded Indian banks of ₹ 13,700 CRORES would have sufficient money to engage best lawyers everywhere and make all possible efforts to stop his deportation or extradition, as the case may be.
In fact, one does not know whether Indian authorities are also really seriously making efforts or just performing rituals. In such high profile matters, anything is possible, if one goes by the past experiences. But, in any case, as mentioned above, extradition is a very complicated and time-consuming process, generally speaking. Meanwhile, it is up to the countries concerned whether to allow his movement from one place to another within or even outside such country.
So, we’ll have to wait and watch what happens in Nirav Modi case next. There is no guarantee that he will ever come back to India or will ever be brought back to India
No comments:
Post a Comment