India-UK Extradition: The Sanjay Bhandari factor
Pic: David Castor In February 2025, came the judgment in the Sanjay Bhandari extradition case. It was given by the Vice-President of the Court of Appeal (criminal division), Lord Justice Holroyde, and Mrs Justice Steyn. The sum effect of that judgment is that Bhandari is a free man. Every defendant is entitled to legal recourse, and in Bhandari's case it was Edward Fitzgerald, KC instructed by Janes Solicitors who represented him. It is now very evident that para 134 of the judgment has now come to occupy a very key argument in India-UK extradition cases. It reads: The evidence is that the use of proscribed treatment to obtain confessions is commonplace and endemic. The evidence indicates that the focus on obtaining confessions flows from being under-resourced, lacking modern investigation techniques or sufficient personnel; and from the lack of will to stamp out the use of torture, reflected in the failure to ratify UNCAT. Those factors would be unaffected by whether investigatin...
