Guest Contributor: Tanishk Goyal is a second year law student at the West Bengal National University of Juridical Sciences, Kolkata. 

On July 2 2019, The U.K refused to extradite a couple who were accused of murdering their adopted Indian boy and his brother-in-law in order to receive a life insurance payout. The UK’s reasoning for this refusal took place against the backdrop of the inhumane and degrading human rights conditions prevailing in India. This discharge added on to the intractably dismal extradition track record of India, despite it having ratified the 1949 Geneva Conventions and The U.N Convention Against Corruption which adopt the framework for extradition and mutual legal assistance between countries for an expedited and effective extradition process. One of the fundamental reasons for this situation is India’s international perception as a country which cannot ensure the safety of the offenders it extradites. 

Although India has ratified the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which lays down a human-rights based framework against torture, the country has still not been able to convince the international community that it can ensure the protection of the civil rights of the accused. 

The UK has justified its actions based on the ruling from a 1989 case in the European Court of Human Rights, Soering v the United Kingdom. This ruling argued that on the basis of Article 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights, before extraditing an individual, the requested state must conduct a strict judicial scrutiny of the extradition process in order to assess for any potential human rights violations against the accused which might take place in the requesting state. This reasoning is primarily intended to ensure the fulfillment of jus cogens norms as a part of the international obligation to protect human rights. Moreover, before the requested state can commence extradition proceedings, it needs to ensure compliance with its treaty obligations. Particularly, it ought to examine the compliance with the United Nations Convention Against Torture, which has been ratified by 166 state parties of which India is not one of them. Thus, as the ECHR understands it,  jus cogens and treaty obligations in fact do override state sovereignty if there is a possibility of the violation of an accused’s human rights in the requesting State.

 

The international community tends to perceive India as a country which continues to have a relatively higher capital punishment rate. This is amply illustrated by the fact that, in the year 2018, India had as many as 162 persons who were sentenced to death by the trial courts. The absence of provisions dealing with the human rights of the accused in the Indian Extradition Act, and the recent Criminal law (Amendment) Act, 2018, which favours a pro death penalty approach to sentencing, also drastically reduces India’s chances for conducting successful extraditions. The overcrowding of Indian jail cells, the lack of proper medical facilities, and the lawlessness and highhandedness of the police in India are oft cited reasons for refusing the extradition of its offenders. 

The appalling conditions of Indian jail cells and ill-treatment of individuals in custody is tremendously infamous internationally. This was illustrated by the 1990 case of Gill v Imundi, when a US District Court, on the basis of evidence offered to it from India, noted that sending the accused to India would lead to gross violations of human rights and the treatment that he would receive would shock the court’s “sense of decency.” Come 29 years later, the precedence of this case still evokes the same international sense that India disregards the human rights of its prisoners, which is one of the fundamental reasons why, even today, India faces the questions of the violation of due process and human rights before it can commence extradition proceedings. 

Beyond formal treatment of prisoners in custody, India also has a demonstrated history of vigilante justice, with vigilantes lynching people on mere suspicion and hearsay. India’s lack of any substantial jurisprudence or case law taking active steps to curb these lynchings also does not help it enhance its extradition numbers.

If India wishes to have success in future extradition requests, Indian Extradition Law needs to be amended to include provisions which ensure the protection of human rights of the extradited individuals. In practice, India must display appropriate precedence which shows that extradited individuals are treated as per international human rights obligations, and protected from unjust and inhumane conditions. Undoubtedly, India should accede to the  UNCAT in order to build a more persuasive case for extradition in the times to come. 

It is imperative to note that, while India assures the international community that an accused person, after being extradited, would be treated according to international humanitarian standards, it can only add weight to these assurances by carving out certain inroads into the Indian Extradition Law. This allows India to address its human rights issues by actively setting precedence which fundamentally transforms its misconceived perception in the international realpolitik.  

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