In a judgment handed down in the high court in London on Friday, Lord Justice Leggatt and Justice Dingemans ruled that the Tihar prison complex “posed no risk” to Sanjeev Kumar Chawla — an Indian-origin British citizen accused of fixing international cricket matches — after receiving a third assurance from the Indian government about his proposed treatment there.
Now that the Indian government has successfully appealed the Westminster magistrates’ court decision to discharge Chawla from extradition proceedings, the case will go back to Westminster magistrates’ court for a fresh decision. The secretary of state makes the final decision on whether to order extradition but that decision can be appealed in the high court. A further appeal can be made in the Supreme Court in London.
Chawla was born in Delhi and lived in India until 1996 when he moved to the UK on a business visa. His Indian passport was revoked in 2000. He was granted indefinite leave to remain in the UK in 2003 and obtained a UK passport in 2005. He is now a British citizen and lives with his wife and two sons in the UK. The Indian government made a request to the British government for Chawla’s extradition on February 1, 2016 after uncovering evidence it said demonstrates Chawla had conspired to fix India-South Africa cricket matches in exchange for payment during the South African team’s tour of India from February to March 2000 in collaboration with the late Hansie Cronje, the then South African captain. Cronje was banned from cricket for life.
After hearing the evidence, the district judge at Westminster magistrates’ court, Rebecca Crane, on October 16, 2017 said she was satisfied there was a prima facie case against Chawla but turned down the extradition request and ordered Chawla’s discharge after considering the conditions in Tihar jail and concluding that there was a risk of torture, contrary to Article 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights, and that the two assurances from the government of India were “insufficient”.
The Indian government appealed that decision.
In their judgment, Lord Justice Leggatt and Mr Justice Dingemans wrote: “Having regard to all of the information available to this court about Tihar prisons, the terms of the third assurance (which was not before the district judge) are sufficient to show that there will be no real risk that Mr Chawla will be subjected to impermissible treatment in Tihar prisons.”
They added: “Therefore… we quash the order discharging Mr Chawla, remit the case to the district judge, and direct the district judge to proceed as if the district judge had not ordered Mr Chawla’s discharge.”
The third assurance, dated June 11, 2018, was signed by a joint secretary to the Indian government.
The judges said: “While nothing can be guaranteed, there is no real risk of intra-prisoner violence to Mr Chawla. There is a guarantee of medical treatment for Mr Chawla should he require it. This is a sufficient assurance. The assurance is specific about the space to be provided to Mr Chawla, and also as to the locations of the cells which will be occupied by Mr Chawla. There does not remain a real risk of impermissible treatment.”
Chawla’s barrister, Helen Malcolm QC, had argued there were insufficient guards on duty in the ward, made reference to deaths of prisoners at Tihar and argued Chawla might be kept in “impermissible conditions”. But Mark Summers QC, representing the government of India in this case, and in the Mallya extradition case in which Indian prison conditions have played a central role, had said the risk of violence was only identified in high-security wards, and Chawla, who could face a long custodial sentence, would not be in one.
Friday’s judgment states that “India is a friendly foreign government” and quotes from a judgment by Lord Burnett LCJ in Giese v Government of the USA, which states: “Whilst there may be states whose assurances should be viewed through the lens of a technical analysis of the words used and suspicion that they will do everything possible to wriggle out of them, that is not appropriate when dealing with friendly foreign governments of states governed by the rule of law where the expectation is that promises given will be kept.”
The judgment in the Mallya extradition case is expected on December 10. India and the UK have an extradition treaty, signed in 1992, but so far only one successful extradition has taken place from the UK to India under the treaty — that of Samirbhai Vinubhai Patel, who was sent back to India in 2016 to face trial in connection with the post-Godhra riots of 2002.
from Times of India https://ift.tt/2TjvIJC
