Delhi High Court today set aside a magisterial inquiry initiated by the government to extradite a French woman to Chile for her alleged involvement in the assassination of a senator there in 1991, terming it illegal.
A bench of Chief Justice G Rohini and Justice Jayant Nath set aside the notification of May 18 this year, by which the inquiry was ordered, saying it was illegal.
The court also held that a February 24 magisterial court order directing her provisional arrest under section 34-B of the Extradition Act 1962, was "without jurisdiction and illegal" and said that as a result, the detention of Marie Emmanuelle Verhoeven was also "illegal".
56-year-old Verhoeven, who was arrested on February 16 this year from Uttar Pradesh on the basis of a red corner notice issued against her, is alleged to have participated in a conspiracy leading to the assassination of Chilean Senator Jaime Guzman Errazuriz on April 1, 1991.
While setting aside the two orders, the high court however made it clear that the 118-year-old treaty entered into between the British Empire and Chile in 1897 was applicable to India back then and cannot be held to have automatically ceased to exist after independence in 1947.
It also said the Centre's April 28 notification, by which the Extradition Act was made applicable to Chile in view of the treaty, did not suffer from any infirmity.
But the Act became applicable to Chile only after the notification was published on April 29 and thus the proceedings for provisional arrest of the woman could not have been ordered prior to that, the court said.
The court also said that the provisional arrest was valid only for a period of 60 days from the date of arrest, if no request of surrender was received within that period.
"The petitioner (Verhoeven) was provisionally arrested on February 24, 2015 and thus, the period of 60 days expired on April 24, 2015," it said, adding that she was "entitled for discharge" after that as no valid extradition request had been received from Chile then.
