New Delhi: The UPA Government, which has been facing strong criticism from the Opposition as well as its own allies over the Ottavio Quattrocchi issue ever since the news of his detention in Argentina became public, came under the surveillance of the Supreme Court on Tuesday when the apex court sought the Centre's response on fresh "revelations" that India has an extradition treaty with that country.
A bench of the apex court, comprising Justices C K Thakker and P K Balsubramanyan, gave the direction after advocate Ajay Agarwal, who has filed the petition seeking Quattrocchi's prosecution, furnished documents pertaining to the extradition treaty in the court on Tuesday.
Additional Solicitor General Gopal Subramaniam, who appeared on behalf of the CBI, assured the court that the agency would file its response on the claim made by Agarwal.
In his additional application, Agarwal cited certain documents to say that in 1956 the then Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru had laid on the table of Parliament a list of extradition treaties India had entered with various countries, including Argentina.
These treaties were originally entered into by the British Government on behalf of India, before independence and continue to be in force as they have not been repealed, he claimed. Nehru had furnished the list in response to a question raised by some MPs on the treaties, the petitioner said.
According to Agarwal, India had entered into an extradition treaty with Argentina as early as in 1889 but the Government and the agency have been misleading the Court and people that there was no extradition treaty between the two countries.
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