DNA Edit: Justice at last? – UAE court has brought AgustaWestland back on focus

The fact that Christian Michel, an accused in the AgustaWestland case, has gone missing ever since a court in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) okayed his extradition to India should not come as a surprise. However, the fact that the court has okayed his extradition represents a big victory for India, a country that had been struggling with getting absconders back to the country to face the law. One only needs to look at the recent history of similar cases to understand this. In 2002, India tried to extradite the late Ottavio Quattrocchi from Kuala Lumpur - it failed. India tried again to get him in 2007 from Argentina - it failed. And today the government is trying to get back Mehul Choksi in Antigua, Vijay Mallya in the UK and an on-the-run Nirav Modi. All of them have managed to evade the long arm of the law so far. That is why the UAE court verdict is so important. The fact that a concrete decision has been made by the court will make other countries across the world sit up and take notice. 

Till now, Interpol red corner notices were issued but since they were not binding on other countries they took no notice of them. Now India can cite a court verdict in its favour. This and the fact that the dragnet may now be closing in on Vijay Mallya in the UK suggests that at long last we may have turned the corner. Defaulters and absconders may now finally be brought back to face the law after all. Such good news needs to be tempered with a little caution. The fact that Michel has “conveniently” disappeared just before the verdict suggests he may not be in the UAE and might have taken refuge in a more “friendly” country by now. It is possible that this is not the case, and that the UAE authorities will find him. But we have been down this road of exultation before only to find that the man has somehow jumped to a country which refuses to let him go. And, there are quite a few such countries. 

Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad had summed up India’s problems when he bluntly told New Delhi that Zakir Naik would not be handed back. New Delhi made some noises but it had to swallow the bitter pill in silence. Even if India does manage to nab Michel, it must stop and reflect as to what is the problem. Experienced as they are, our legal and intelligence officers are certainly no longer ignorant of the legal process involving extradition. The problem lies elsewhere – in that we are not powerful enough. Imagine if it was a US, UK or Chinese national that was on the run from the law. It is unlikely that he would have been able to escape their dragnet. This is because the country in which the guilty party is residing does not want to upset these countries. With India, that is still not the case today. Other countries don’t mind upsetting us. 

The other reason why other countries don’t take us seriously is because we ourselves are not serious. Unlike other nations, we have not evolved a bipartisan approach towards absconders with the result that efforts to bring them back make headlines for a week, maybe two, and then die away.