India urges Britain to extradite 57

India urged Britain on Monday to extradite 57 people wanted by it in different criminal cases here. The list includes liquor baron Vijay Mallya and Christian Michel, an alleged middleman in the Agusta Westland helicopter deal.

Sources said Britain too has handed over a list of 17 such people to India whose extradition has been sought under the Mutual Legal Assistance Treaty or against whom Letters Rogatories have been issued. The list was exchanged during the bilateral talks between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his British counterpart Theresa May.

In addition, the two countries have also agreed to have an annual strategic dialogue at the level of home secretary, which will focus primarily on issues like terrorism, organised crime, easing of visa norms and immigration matters.

This is the first time India and Britain will have such a mechanism to deal with security related issues and is expected to start from next year. India already has a similar arrangement with the United States at the level of home minister to have an annual Homeland Security dialogue.

Following the talks between the two countries, enforcement agencies here are hopeful of some forward movement on the extradition of Vijay Mallya as the issue was discussed in detail even during the run to the meeting of Prime Minister Modi and Ms May.

Sources said both countries have also reached an understanding as to not to allow criminals or fugitives to escape while taking advantage of the existing laws and have agreed to work on a mechanism to facilitate all outstanding extradition requests.

During the meeting between Mr Modi and Ms May the issue of extradition requests was also discussed and officials from both sides have been asked to meet at the earliest to resolve the matter. They also agreed that regular interactions between the relevant India-UK authorities would be useful for resolving all outstanding cases expeditiously.

“If there is some forward movement on the extradition issue and some concrete steps are taken then we may even push for an early extradition of former IPL chief Lalit Modi who is also said to be in UK,” a senior official said. While Christian Michel is wanted by CBI for investigations into the Agusta Westland case, both Vijay Mallya and Lalit Modi are wanted by the Enforcement Directorate in alleged cases of money laundering.