Pontius Pilate, who tried and crucified Jesus, asked him the last and only question which he did not answer—what is truth? There could be many interpretations to Jesus’s silence. Perhaps he knew nothing about the truth or Jesus saw that Pilate would not be able to understand it. There could be numerous interpretations to the deafening silence of the government as well, which is being questioned frequently over ‘Truth’ on those fleeing from justice.
The only answer that we get to hear to such a vital and ultimately meaningful question is that decision makers have been thinking to bring back all the fugitives, settled abroad. I agree with them. Only then can government live in peace because only then justice will not only be done, but it will be seen as done. But, when and how?
Since Lalit Modi fled the country in early 2010, the investigating agencies are living in the paradox. Power is always political. Before they could get Lalit Modi, the Liquor baron Vijay Mallya disappeared, triggering political controversy. The government was forced to come out with a carefully drafted response to douse the fire.
British Prime Minister Theresa May was handed over a list of 57 fugitives living a lavish life in the UK requesting their extradition under Mutual Legal Assistance Treaty (MLAT). Political leaders agreed that fugitives and criminals should not be allowed to escape the law. Of course.
Since then Mallya was arrested twice only to be granted bail within a few hours. The latest incident was earlier this week. The ‘king of good times’ was arrested on Tuesday over allegations of pumping laundered cash into his ‘Formula 1’ team. A few hours later, the Westminster Magistrate Court granted the flamboyant multimillionaire bail.
The Enforcement Directorate, which is probing money laundering angle in a case related to `900-crore loan from IDBI Bank, has already exhausted legal remedies available with it, including Interpol’s red corner notice, etc. These measures are like firing a muzzleloader gun against a tank. To get a citizenship in some tax haven countries is as easy for Mallya and Lalit Modi as buying cookies from a roadside bakery.
There are more such cases in the pipeline that requires the government to establish the criminality of the wanted person in the foreign court. The process to bring back fugitive arms dealer Sanjay Bhandari is yet to start. He lives in London and Intelligence sources have confirmed his whereabouts.
Since 2002, India has been able to get only 62 most wanted from abroad. As far as the UK is concerned, British authorities extradited only Samirbhai Vinubhai Patel in October 2016. An investigator said that they tried in every possible way to speed up the extradition process in at least four cases in the UK but the bureaucracy proved a perfect speed breaker.
The Government of India has entered into bilateral Extradition Treaties with 51 countries. Ministry of External Affairs is responsible to conclude extradition treaties with as many countries as possible so as to ensure those fugitive criminals do not escape justice. Efforts are also made through diplomatic channels and sometimes the matter is taken up at the highest level in select cases but success has been confined to terror-related cases.
The government may claim it brought back Chhota Rajan from Indonesia in 2015 but that is hardly enough to neutralize the embarrassment in other cases. Nadeem Saifi, Ravi Shankaran, Tiger Hanif, along with Lalit Modi, Bhandari and Mallya are still at large.
Till 2015, India had issued 655 Red Corner Notices against fugitives wanted by various Indian law enforcement agencies. In three years during 2013-15, only 23 red notice subjects were arrested abroad. The Fugitive Economic Offenders Bill, 2017, approved by the Union Law Ministry aims to deter economic offenders from fleeing the country by confiscating their assets.
The burden of proof, however, for establishing that an individual is a fugitive economic offender will be on the respective authorities. How potent it would be against likes of Mallya and Bhandari, nevertheless, remains a big question mark. Organised crime and politics is an organic unity. The offenders and the politicians have always been in a conspiracy. Truth is just a toy in their hands.