The Indian Home Secretary Rajiv Mehrisi was visiting the UK for a week, as a part of his India-UK Home Affairs dialogue, which concluded on Monday 17 July. He addressed media at the High Commission of India where he discussed the variety of issues from extradition of overstaying Indians, UK visa delays to post-study work visas for Indian students.
The India-UK Home Affairs Dialogue was set up during UK Prime Minister Theresa May's visit to India in November 2016. The first meeting under the process took place in New Delhi in May and the meeting in London was co-chaired by Mehrishi with UK Permanent Secretary Philip Rutnam.
When asked if the extradition of fugitive liquor baron Vijay Mallya and former IPL chief Lalit Modi were raised specifically with the UK authorities, Mehrishi said the issues that affect extradition ‘across the board’ were discussed, rather than specific cases. "Mr Mallya's case is sub-judice. The issues around extradition discussed during the meetings only focused on any difficulties that may arise in extradition cases in general.”
India and Britain have an extradition treaty, signed in 1992, but so far only one extradition has taken place under the arrangement - that of Samirbhai Vinubhai Patel. It is believed there might be a possibility of extradition to UK from India in the coming 10 days- a proof that the treaty works.
The issue of women abandoned by Indian-origin and NRI spouses from the UK back in India was also raised by India and it was agreed that follow-up meetings on that would take place next week with senior Indian High Commission diplomats. The Union Home Secretary held talks with Brandon Lewis, UK minister for immigration and others over the past week, most of which are not in the "public domain".
The UK, on the other hand, raised the issue of illegal Indian immigrants overstaying in the UK. Mehrisi reportedly said, "Approximately, the UK has been able to identify in the region of about 1,000 illegal immigrants from India a year. We made it clear that it is a matter of policy for India that anybody identified as an Indian who is illegally in the UK, we will expedite his or her return.
"The only issue is about cross-checks and time taken because sometimes illegal immigrants, understandably, destroy their documents and therefore identifying them as Indians takes a lot of time," he added.
