Police produce Abu Salem's extradition documents in court

Mon, Mar 24 09:45 PM

New Delhi, Mar 24 (PTI) The Delhi Police, seeking to drop MCOCA charges against gangster Abu Salem, today produced documents related to his extradition proceedings in a city court. The documents, dealing with the mutual extradition arrangement under which the underworld don was deported from Portugal, were filed before Additional Sessions Judge Ravinder Kaur, who had earlier pulled up the prosecution for filing an "ambiguous" application over the dropping of MCOCA charges.

Taking the documents on records, the court deferred the hearing for April seven. Earlier, Additional Solicitor General Vikas Singh had sought dropping of charges against extradited gangster Salem under the Maharashtra Control of Organised Crime Act (MCOCA) saying that he, as per the terms of the extradition, could not be slapped with fresh cases.

The instant case was not referred to in the extradition documents, which were mutually agreed between Indian and Portuguese authorities, the ASG had said. The court had sought details about the accused's plea before courts in Portugal over the conditions for his extradition.

It was informed that Salem's counsel had approached the Portuguese Supreme Court, alleging breach of international commitment on the part of New Delhi by prosecuting him for the additional charges under the MCOCA. The Delhi Government in its application under Section 321 of the CrPC sought withdrawal of provisions of the MCOCA invoked against Salem in a supplementary chargesheet.

It said that that Portuguese embassy had informed it that the MCOCA charges were not included in the extradition order against Salem. PTI.

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