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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.

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.