The deadlock over Abu Salem’s return has highlighted India’s poor track record over getting back its fugitives or even getting assistance in criminal matters from the smallest of nations.A situation that can only change, say federal investigators, if the Extradition Act is amended so that the quantum of sentence can be reduced to meet the legal requirement of the other Besides the 11 fugitives facing extradition proceedings, there are a whopping 138 Letters Rogatory (LRs) lying unexecuted in countries like the Bahamas, Chile, Gambia, Senegal, Paraguay and even the Ivory Coast. Some for over a decade.As many as 113 of these unexecuted LRs have been sent by the Central Bureau of Investigation, whose officials admit mutual assistance on criminal cases have succeeded in just 15-odd cases these past few years. Says CBI Chief P C Sharma, ‘‘While the system of sending Letters Rogatory and asking for mutual assistance on criminal matters is good, the result is not good enough. There are LRs pending in 43 countries and the absence of response has delayed many crucial cases.’’Figures speak for themselves. There are 25 pending LRs in several countries for assistance in the mega Indian Bank scam and 23 more for help in chasing baffling international leads in the Rajiv Gandhi assassination case. Other requests for cooperation ignored by foreign governments with the Purulia arms drops case and the IC-814 hijacking.While several smaller countries have treated India’s request for criminal assistance with disdain, larger countries have failed to respond even when the LRs began piling up. There are 12 LRs currently pending with the UK, 10 with the US, nine in the UAE and five each with Austrlia and Hongkong.In all, India has extradition treaties with 12 countries and negotiations are in progress with 44 more. However, the failure to extradite Ottavio Quattrochhi from Malaysia and and Nadeem Akhtar from the UK as well as the difficulties in trying to get Abu Salem back spurred the Government into considering making another set of amendments in its Extradition Law. One set of amendments in the law were made in 1993.Officials say that the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) recently sought suggestions from connected departments on the nature of amendments, especially on how several countries now expected a sovereign assurance on the quantum of punishment fugitives will get after being extradited to India.For Salem’s on-going extradition case, India had given an assurance that his term of imprisonment would not be more than 25 years, in conformity with Portuguese law.Explains Arun Gupta, CBI’s coordinator in the Interpol division, ‘‘the Extradition Act needs a provision where the quantum of sentence can be reduced to meet the legal requirement of the requested country. In future, we should not face the problems we did in the Abu Salem case.’’
