HC seeks govt reply to Agusta accused's plea

NEW DELHI: Delhi high court Monday sought responses from the Centre, CBI and ED on a plea by alleged middleman Christian Michel James, an accused in the Rs 3,600 crore AgustaWestland VVIP chopper scam case, challenging a provision of the India-UAE extradition treaty.

A bench of Justices Vivek Chaudhary and Manoj Jain asked the home ministry, external affairs ministry, and the two central probe agencies to file their objections regarding the maintainability of Michel's plea, and listed the matter for hearing on April 9, 2026. In his petition, Michel challenged Article 17 of the treaty, signed in 1999, which allows the requesting state (in this case, India) to prosecute extradited persons not only for the specific offence for which extradition was done, but also for connected offences. Michel was extradited from Dubai in Dec 2018 under this treaty.
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