The Supreme Court has urged the Centre to explore guidelines to prevent foreign nationals accused of a crime from fleeing the country after getting bail.
A bench of Justices Dipankar Datta and Augustine George Masih passed the order while disposing of an appeal filed by the Jharkhand government, which had sought cancellation of the bail granted to a Nigerian national, Alex David alias M.U. Henry, who fled the country after being granted bail.
On December 4, 2024, the Supreme Court set aside the Jharkhand High Court order granting bail to David and asked the Centre’s view on the issue of laying guidelines to deal with issues of foreign nationals jumping bail and fleeing the country.
In the order dated December 4, 2024, the top court had directed: “Under these circumstances, we allow the prayer of the petitioner state of Jharkhand and set aside the order of the high court dated 13.05.2022 by which the bail was granted to respondent no.1-Alex David @ M.U. Henry, and direct the Union of India to take appropriate measures as they have suggested in their guidelines.
“Jharkhand shall fully cooperate in this matter so that the respondent no.1 can be brought to India to face the trial pending against him. All the same, a request has been made from both sides of the parties that something more needs to be done in this case as these cases keep coming up and therefore, a proper set of guidelines have to be framed and distributed to all the court concerned so that such incidents do not happen in future,” it directed.
It said: “As far as the present case is concerned, we have already decided the precise issue before us in as much as we have allowed the petition and set aside the bail order of the respondent. In this regard, further procedure has to be duly followed by the Union of India and Jharkhand. For the larger issue, we presently adjourn the matter to 18.02.2025 for further orders.”
However, on August 26, Raj Kumar Bhaskar Thakre, additional solicitor-general appearing for the Centre, placed a communication from the external affairs ministry, stating: “… In furtherance of email dated 06.08.2025, it is informed that the extradition request, prepared by the superintendent of police, Giridh, Jharkhand, was received by the ministry of external affairs, and after duly vetting the same, it has been sent to the Indian high commission, Abuja, Nigeria, based on ‘assurance of reciprocity’, for onward transmission to the Nigerian authorities. In the absence of a bilateral extradition treaty between India and Nigeria, the Nigerian authorities are unlikely to extradite their
own nationals.”