LONDON: Two high court judges on Thursday dismissed an appeal by the Indian government to overturn a decision by Chief Magistrate Emma Arbuthnot to discharge a PIO married couple accused of “organizing” a double murder in Gujarat.
Nairobi-born PIO British citizen Arti Dhir (54), whose family belongs to Gurdaspur in Punjab, and her 30-year-old husband, Kavaljitsinh Mahendrasinh Raijadaan, an Indian national, from Keshod in Gujarat, who live in London, are accused of plotting with others the murder of 12-year-old orphan Gopal Sejani, whom Arti had adopted in 2015, and Kavaljitsinhs brother-in-law Harsukhbhai Chaganbhai Kardani in order to obtain the proceeds from a claim on a Rs 1.3 crore insurance policy that Arti took out for Gopal.
The prosecution alleges that on February 8, 2017, Gopal and Harshukhbhai were travelling with one Mr Mund when they were both attacked by two masked assassins on a motorbike in Keshod. They both later died in hospital from knife injuries. Arti and Kavaljitsinh are said to have arranged for the child to be killed. The prosecution case is that Kavaljitsinh agreed to pay Mund Rs 5 lakh to hire the assassins to kill Gopal.
On July 2, 2019, Chief Magistrate Emma Arbuthnot at Westminster Magistrates Court turned the extradition request down on the basis it would be incompatible with Article 3 of the European Convention of Human Rights since there would have no prospect of early release if sentenced to life imprisonment in Gujarat for double murder.
That was despite the Government of India providing an assurance in an email 45 minutes before she was due to give judgment assuring the court that if sentenced to life imprisonment, Arti and Kavaljitsinh would be eligible to apply for remission. Though the chief magistrate found there was a prima facie case on the offences against the couple, she discharged them on the irreversible life sentence point having declined to consider the “very late assurance”.
Dismissing Indias appeal against that decision in the administrative court of the high court on Thursday, Lord Justice Dingemans cast the blame on thRead More – Source
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