New Delhi, July 15 (IANS) The Delhi High Court Friday paved the way for non-resident Indian (NRI) fugitive Avtar Singh Grewal's extradition to the US to face trial for allegedly killing his estranged wife in 2007.


The court dismissed his petition challenging a trial court's decision to allow his extradition.

The division bench of Justice B.D. Ahmed and Justice Manmohan Singh said: "We find no infirmity or illegality in the order passed by the ACMM (additional chief metropolitan magistrate)."

Grewal, 37, challenged a trial court's inquiry report which held that there was prima facie sufficient evidence for his extradition to the US.

The bench said: “We may also point out that we are not sitting in appeal over the report. The petitioner has invoked our extraordinary writ jurisdiction and, in doing so, we do not have to examine as to whether the inquiry order is right or wrong, but we have to examine whether the same are legal or illegal and whether the procedure prescribed in the Extradition Act, as also in the said treaty, have been followed or not.”

“We have already pointed out that we find no illegality in the order and we are of the view that the procedure has been correctly followed,” the bench said in its 24-page order.

“In view of the foregoing discussion, the writ petition has no merit and the same is dismissed,” said Justice Ahmed.

The fugitive, then working as manager with a firm at Vancouver in Canada, allegedly travelled to Phoenix in the US to meet his estranged wife Navneet Kaur and flew out of that country on a one-way ticket after killing her March 29, 2007.

"Once it is clear, prima facie, that the offence for which the petitioner has been charged constitutes murder under the Indian law, there is no question of invoking article 8 of the Extradition Treaty requiring the government of India to refuse extradition,” said the bench.

The court allowed the plea of A.K. Vali and Naveen K. Matta, special prosecutors of the external affairs ministry, that the offence allegedly committed by the fugitive was an extraditable crime.

Grewal was arrested on arrival at Delhi airport March 31, 2007 following an alert sounded by the Interpol.