India

The Delhi High Court held that Article 17 of the India–UAE Extradition Treaty allows the prosecution of an extradited person not only for the offences for which extradition was granted, but also for “offences connected therewith” arising from the same factual background. The Court rejected the petitioner’s argument that his prosecution for additional offences violated the principle of speciality and Section 21 of the Indian Extradition Act, finding that the requested State’s consent to prosecute connected offences is effectively incorporated into the treaty itself.

The case concerned an application by the requested person to reopen his extradition appeal against surrender to India, following an earlier dismissal of his Article 3 ECHR and health-based objections. He argued that the later judgment in Bhandari v Government of India revealed a real risk of torture or ill-treatment during custodial interrogation by Indian investigative agencies, and that this risk also applied to him because several agencies might seek to question him after extradition. The Divisional Court accepted that, without adequate assurances, the application to reopen would have had considerable force, given the findings in Bhandari concerning the use of proscribed treatment to obtain confessions. However, the Court held that India had provided comprehensive, detailed and reliable assurances that the requested person would not be interrogated by the CBI, the ED or any other investigative agency without prior recourse to the United Kingdom authorities, and that those assurances were given in good faith and were binding at the diplomatic level. Since the assurances were sufficient to remove any real practical risk of interrogation and ill-treatment, the Court refused permission to reopen the extradition appeal.

The High Court of England and Wales allowed the appeal against an extradition order to India in relation to financial offences, finding that surrender would expose the requested person to a real risk of inhuman or degrading treatment. The Court relied on detailed evidence concerning detention conditions and the use of coercion by investigative authorities, concluding that the diplomatic assurances provided were insufficient to mitigate that risk. The Court further held that the applicant would face a real risk of a flagrant denial of justice, in light of procedural features of the criminal system, including provisions capable of reversing the burden of proof. On this basis, extradition was barred under Articles 3 and 6 ECHR, and the appellant was discharged.

In matters of extradition, if the person sought is subject to pending proceedings for offences other than those underlying the request for surrender, and there exists a serious risk that he or she may be subjected to torture in connection with such additional charges, the Court of Appeal is required to obtain information on the nature of those further allegations. Such information must be assessed together with up-to-date data concerning the practice of torture within the prison system of the requesting State. Case concerning a request for extradition to India for drug-related offences against an individual belonging to a separatist minority, in respect of whom the Territorial Commission for the Recognition of International Protection had identified the existence of additional terrorism proceedings. In relation to those proceedings, a risk was found that the person sought would be subjected to inhuman and degrading treatment, in light of India’s failure to ratify the Convention against Torture, as well as on the basis of information reported by multiple international sources, including: a written question of the European Parliament; a Human Rights Asia report on the practice of torture in India; the Law Commission of India report of 30 October 2017; and the 2008 report of the Human Rights Committee on torture in India.

The case concerned the attempted reliance, in relations between Italy and India, on the 1873 bilateral extradition convention concluded between Italy and the United Kingdom, at a time when the United Kingdom exercised colonial authority over India. The Rome Court of Appeal examined whether treaties concluded by a colonial power could continue to apply to a newly independent successor State notwithstanding the general “clean slate” principle. It held that devolution agreements between the former colonial power and the newly independent State are, in themselves, res inter alios acta and cannot be invoked against the original treaty counterparty unless followed by a formal act of succession, in the case of multilateral treaties, or by a specific agreement between the successor State and the original counterparty, usually by exchange of notes, in the case of bilateral treaties. The Court further observed that continuation could also be inferred from unequivocal conduct showing both States’ intention to remain bound by the treaty. In the absence of such formal steps or conclusive conduct, the Court held that the 1873 Italy–United Kingdom extradition convention was not applicable between Italy and India.