In a major development for the Government of India, alleged bookie Sanjeev Chawla lost a last-ditch appeal in the UK High Court on 16 January, 2020 and is set to be extradited to India to face charges of match fixing in India.
Chawla has been facing the charges of cricket match-fixing for exactly two decades after the Hansie Cronje scandal broke out. The PIO had accussed him of helping Cronje fix matches. He is set to be extradited to India within the next 28 days after his application for leave to appeal the district judge’s decision was turned down by two high court judges.
DCP Ram Gopal Naik and inspector Keshav Mathur of the Delhi Police have gone to London and are going to return with Chawla by January 20, 2020. Mathur was the officer of the match-fixing case.
A spokesman for the Crown Prosecution Service said, “He has no further options and will be extradited once the court order is served.” Mark Summers QC, representing the government of India in the case, confirmed, “He cannot go to the Supreme Court as he has not been granted leave to appeal.”
The only option left with Chawla is the pending conclusion of any European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) hearing. In 2018, out of 137 requests for a stay of proceedings by the ECHR, only one was granted.
Lord Justice Bean and Justice Lewis while deciding the case said, “We are quite satisfied that permission for both should be refused. In many extradition cases where it is said prison conditions of the requesting state are unacceptable, the requesting state may say we are giving assurances and the requested person may end up in privileged position compared to the common or garden prisoner arrested on the streets of Delhi.”
Author: Nandini Gandhi
