UK Court clears arms dealer Sanjay Bhandari’s extradition to India

A UK court on Monday approved Sanjay Bhandari, an accused middleman and consultant in arms deals, to be extradited to India. The 60-year-old faced two extradition requests from Indian authorities, the first related to money laundering and the second to tax evasion. Bhandari’s extradition has been ordered in a money laundering case being probed by the Enforcement Directorate (ED). The agency was fighting the case in UK' Westminister court court on behalf of the Indian government. District Judge Michael Snow, who heard the case at Westminster Magistrates Court in London earlier this year, concluded that there are no bars to him being extradited and decided to send the case to UK Home Secretary Suella Braverman, who is authorised to order the extradition based on the court order.

Cases have been filed against him by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) and the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) in connection to the Samsung-ONGC deal during the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government. The ED had initiated its investigation after a complaint under the Black Money (Undisclosed Foreign Income & Assets) and Imposition of Act, 2015 [Black Money Act] was filed against accused Sanjay Bhandari before the court by Income Tax authorities. The ED had filed a chargesheet on June 1, 2020 against Sanjay Bhandari and other co-conspirators, including various companies floated by him in the overseas jurisdiction.

Bhandari can appeal against the extradition judgment before the High Court within 45 days. In 2020, the Indian government’s extradition request for Bhandari had been certified by the then UK Home Secretary Priti Patel on June 16 and he was arrested a month later in London on July 15. In the lawsuit, Bhandari has reportedly called himself a “well-known commercial intermediary involved in arms and defence in India”. He claimed to have “worked with major international defence companies to assist them in negotiating arms contracts with the Indian Ministry of Defence.”