INDIA BUSINESS WORLD - JULY - AUGUST - 2007
The Month that was ...

SUPREME COURT REFUSES TO STAY KOHLI'S EXTRADITION TO UK

THE Supreme Court has refused to stay the extradition of Maninder Pal Singh Kohli to UK to face trial in the rape and murder of British teenager Hannah Foster.

A bench comprising Justice G P Mathur and Justice P K Balasubramanyan while refusing to entertain the plea said that the accused case falls under "heinous offence".

The court was not impressed with the plea of Kohli's counsel Rajesh Srivastava that the accused would not get a fair trial in United Kingdom in view of the general bias against Asian communities there.

In order to impress the court, Kohli's counsel also relied on harsher international law on extradition. To substantiate that, he zeroed in on the case of Indian doctor Mohammed Haneef charged with supporting of a terror group in Australia.

But the court turned down the analogy between the two and said that Kohli's case was of "heinous offence." The repeated pleas of Kohli's counsel that the extradition order was erroneous failed to yield any result.

Realising the mood of the court, Kohli's counsel sought permission of the court to withdraw the petition which was granted. However, the court said that if the accused was aggrieved with the Delhi high court order, he can move a review petition.

The accused had challenged the order of the magistrate and the Delhi high court allowing the plea of the Ministry Of External Affairs seeking Kohli's extradition to face trial in a court at Southampton in Britain.

Kohli had contended that the original evidence placed before the extradition magistrate had not supported the allegations against him and the order for extradition was passed after considering additional evidence which were placed before the court at later stage.