The apex court heard the matter and acknowledged this to be an “extremely sensitive matter” for the Ministry of External Affairs.
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New Delhi
The plea seeks Indian government’s intervention in extradition proceedings initiated by the US against Nikhil Gupta. The petition claims Gupta is being illegally detained in Prague, and that, as a law-abiding citizen, fears his life is in danger. Nikhil Gupta, 52, is accused of trying to hire a hitman to assassinate Pannun, a Khalistani terrorist who holds American-Canadian citizenship. Gupta is accused of trying to hire a hitman but the hitman turned out to be an undercover US federal agent.
He faces a 20-year jail term if convicted of the murder-for-hire and conspiracy charges. The US has also accused an Indian government employee, whose identity has been withheld at this time.
In an indictment, US federal prosecutors have addressed the Indian official as “CC-1” and claimed he masterminded the plot from India to eliminate “an attorney and political activist who is a US citizen of Indian origin residing in New York City”.
The apex court heard the matter and acknowledged this to be an “extremely sensitive matter” for the Ministry of External Affairs. “We will have this on January 4 after vacations. We will decide on the next date. Serve a copy to the central agency (Central government),” a Bench led by Justice Sanjiv Khanna told senior counsel Aryama Sundaram after he pressed for a direction to the Central government on behalf of the petitioner.
Gupta was arrested by Czech authorities in June and is awaiting extradition to US. The charges were unveiled in a Superseding Indictment unsealed in November in the US District Court for the Southern District of New York. Though the prosecutors did not name the “target”, US officials have identified him as Sikh separatist Gurpatwant Singh Pannun.
Czech authorities arrested and detained Gupta on June 30, based on the bilateral extradition treaty between US and the Czech Republic. Gupta faces charges of murder-for-hire and conspiracy to commit murder-for-hire, each carrying a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison.
The US indictment, which identifies Pannu as “The Victim”, also identifies an Indian government employee as CC-1, who allegedly collaborated with others, including Gupta, to direct a plot to assassinate “a US citizen of Indian origin” residing in New York City.
