New Delhi: The Czech Constitutional Court dismissed Indian national Nikhil Gupta’s petition to stop his extradition to the United States on conspiracy to murder a Khalistani lawyer, affirming that legal procedures were properly followed and rejecting his claim that charges were political in nature.The US had sought Gupta’s extradition to face the charges unsealed in an indictment in November 2023, which also indicated that the Indian national had been instructed to hire a hitman to target the Sikh lawyer on the instructions of an Indian government official.The unsealed indictment had also stated that Gupta was aware in advance of the plan to kill the Canadian national Hardeep Singh Nijjar, who was proscribed as a Khalistani terrorist by India.In an order dated May 22, a two-judge bench of the Czech Constitutional Court announced that it “has not found any circumstance for which the pronouncement of the admissibility of extradition should lead to a violation of any of the constitutionally guaranteed basic rights and freedoms of the applicant.”It added, “For the complainant, the proceedings before the Czech courts come to an end”.The Czech Justice Minister will now take the final decision on the extradition.As per norm, there was no oral proceedings, but the decision was reached based on the written materials contained in the case file and written interventions sought from the Municipal Prosecutor’s Office in Prague, the High Court and the Municipal Court in Prague and Ministry of Justice.Gupta was arrested in June last year on arrival at Vaclav Havel international airport in Prague at 6.33 pm, but his arrest was only publicly revealed by the US prosecutors in November. The US prosecutors had formally asked for Gupta’s arrest and extradition to Czech Republic on June 19, 2023, which was submitted to the Czech Justice Ministry on June 27.The Wire had first reported about Gupta’s legal process before the Czech judiciary in December last year.The Czech Municipal Court had accepted the extradition request in an order dated November 23, 2023, which was then appealed by Gupta. The High Court also ruled in favour of the admissibility of the extradition request on January 8 this year.Gupta’s defence lawyer then went to the Constitutional Court on January 19, which stayed the extradition proceedings till it gave the final verdict.In his complaint to the constitutional court, Gupta claimed that the lower courts did not follow due process. He asserted that the US request was a “political matter and at least a paramilitary one with the knowledge of the Indian government”, which required it to be examined in that context.To support his claim that the charges were “political motivated”, the Constitutional Court observed that Gupta had pointed out that the “victim was included in the official list of terrorists by the Indian government”.Gurpatwant Singh Pannun. Photo: X/@SFJGenCounsel.The US charges had not named the victim, but he is widely known to be US-Canadian double citizen, Gurpatwant Singh Pannun, general counsel for Sikhs for Justice, a Khalistani group proscribed as a terror group by India.Objecting to this line of argument, the Czech Justice Ministry told the Constitutional Court that the lower courts had “detailed their conclusions regarding the apolitical nature of the crime in the justification of the decision”.“At the same time, the High Court in Prague took into account not only the extradition materials sent by the American side in August 2023, but also the so-called substitute indictment as part of the assessment of the said question,” the Constitutional court order stated, citing the Justice Ministry.Gupta had also alleged that the Municipal Court had given its verdict before the unsealing of the new detailed indictment by the US prosecutors, which did not allow for him to present his defence sufficiently.He also claimed that “in his case the general courts prioritized the speed of decision making at the expense of his fundamental rights”.The Indian national also reiterated that he was questioned by two agents of the US’ Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) at the time of the arrest at Prague’s Airport, who recorded videos and extracted data from his mobile phone, “although foreign authorities cannot carry out criminal proceedings on the territory of the Czech Republic”.He also asserted that on extradition to the US, there was “risk of being held in solitary confinement for a period of time and under conditions which could constitute torture and inhuman treatment contrary to Article 3 of the Convention [for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms]”.‘Not a political activist’As per a machine translation of the order, the Constitutional Court ruled that “political or military dimension does not follow either from the legal classification of the crime in question, or from the act itself and, contrary to the complainant’s opinion, from the circumstances of its commission”. It also accepted the High Court’s argument that Gupta “is not a political activist and the act was not aimed at a change in the organization of public affairs”.To the defence’s claim that the identity of Gupta was not sufficiently established as per the arrest warrant, the Constitutional Court stated that it “has no doubts about the authenticity of the submitted extradition documents and the correctness of the applicant’s identification”.The Czech Court also argued that the lower courts had logically “justified the non-conduct of further evidence, so that the resulting situation cannot be described as “omitted evidence” in the sense of the persistent jurisprudence of the local court”.It also noted that the Courts would have taken further notice of new evidence if Gupta had admitted “it was necessary to consider the fact that he has a commitment and obligation within his position in the whole matter imposed by the Indian secret service not to speak about the matter in any way, and that it is necessary to examine whether he could or should have refused the request of agent CC1, or whether it was an order that he had to fulfil due to his assignment”.India had set up a high-level committee to investigate the US charges that an Indian government official, labelled as ‘CC-1’ in the indictment, was targeting US nationals on American territory. India had said that it took the charges seriously, but it has not yet made public the findings of the committee.In contrast to its response to the US allegations, India had reacted angrily and taken punitive steps when Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau had pointed finger at India for having been behind the killing of Nijjar in September.
