A day after a British court rejected the demand to extradite Ravi Shankaran, a key accused in the Navy War Room leak case, the CBI said they are examining the court’s order and, after taking legal opinion, will take a suitable course of action. The court also ordered the CBI to pay over Rs 1 crore to Shankaran as legal costs. The setback for CBI in the eight year old case came after the British court rejected the order passed by its lower court against Shankaran, a relative of former Navy chief Admiral Arun Prakash. Last year, the district judge at the Westminster Magistrates Court, while ruling in favour of the CBI, had rejected Shankaran’s petition and said “a case to answer has been made out” against the accused and the verdict can be sent to British home secretary Theresa May for a final decision on issuing an extradition order. Shankaran is a key accused in the case of leaking classified information from the war room to arms dealers. He has been absconding since the case was registered by the CBI in March 2006. The CBI revoked Shankaran’s passport in May 2006 and secured a red corner notice against him after filing a chargesheet in July 2006. An extradition request was sent to Britain in 2007 following reports that he was in the country and was arrested by authorities in April 2010 on the basis of the non-bailable arrest warrants issued by a Delhi court. Shankaran’s defence team had claimed some of the evidence should be ruled inadmissible and that their client’s human rights were at a “real risk” of being impinged due to the “endemic delays in the Indian judicial system”. Besides Shankaran, who is out on conditional bail, other accused in the case include sacked naval commander V K Jha, former Indian Air Force wing commander S L Surve and businessmen Abhishek Verma. – with PTI
