July 20: The Supreme Court of India today rejected the plea of extradition of Maninder Pal Singh Kohli, accused of raping and killing British teenager Hannah Foster, to the United Kingdom quoting "It was a very heinous crime" and the accused have to go under trial in UK as his advocate has filed it to escape him from extradition. Earlier, the apex court had refused to stay the orders allowing extradition of Maninder Pal Singh Kohli on July 13.
A bench of two judges, Chief Justice K G Balakrishnan and Justice R V Raveendran said, “It is not a case deserving any stay, your car was moving and it was in camera”, referring the image of vehicle caught in the CCTV around the place where the alleged offence was committed.
The Court also refused the repeated pleas for early hearing of Kohli’s appeal against the orders of the Delhi High Court filed by his counsel Rajesh Srivastava, if the orders of the High Court and the magistrate were not stayed, he would be extradited to the UK.
After refusing of the plea, Rajesh has put back the petition. The counsel of Kohli has filed a petition before Supreme Court arguing, “The 13 out of 20 DNA samples of the accused tallied that is not a solid evidence against my client, he is only alleged not the culprit so on the basis of allegation, he should not get extradition as the European countries are biased to Asians” as in the case of Mohd. Haneef, who is in under custody in Australia and facing biased behaviour to AFP.
The magistrate's court had allowed the plea of Ministry of External Affairs to extradite Kohli to face the trial in a court at Southampton in Britain on June 08. Kohli has challenged it before Delhi High Court arguing that there was no prima facie evidence against him. Earlier, the Ministry of External affairs had filed a plea in Magistrate’s court for extraditing of Maninder Pal Singh to U K to face the court trial with this condition that we would not get death sentence.
Finally the apex court has refused his plea and allows the Ministry of External Affairs to extradite him with the attached condition of not getting death sentenced. More than 100 court appearances requires in extradition process.
A spokesman for Hampshire Constabulary, said, "We welcome the decision of the Indian authorities to extradite Maninder Pal Singh Kohli to stand trial in relation to the abduction, rape and murder of Hannah Foster. Hampshire Constabulary and the Crown Prosecution Service are liaising with the Home Office and with the British High Commission and the Ministry of External Affairs in India to facilitate process of bringing Kohli to the UK."
Hannah's parents, Trevor and Hilary, have travelled to India three times to appeal for Kohli's extradition.
Kohli is charged with raping and murdering the 17-year-old British girl and then fleeing to India from Britain two days after her body was found. Kohli has been in custody for over two years after his arrest on July 14, 2004 at Kalimpong in West Bengal.
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