US SC justices to hear Tahawwur Rana's renewed application seeking stay of extradition to India
New York (PTI): US Supreme Court justices will hear next month Mumbai terror attack accused Tahawwur Rana’s renewed application, submitted to Chief Justice John Roberts, seeking a stay of his extradition to India.
Rana, 64, is currently lodged in the Metropolitan Detention Center in Los Angeles and submitted an "Emergency Application For Stay Pending Litigation of Petition For Writ of Habeas Corpus” on February 27, 2025 with Elena Kagan, Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States and Circuit Justice for the Ninth Circuit.
Earlier this month, Kagan had denied the application.
Rana had then renewed his "Emergency Application for Stay Pending Litigation of Petition for Writ of Habeas Corpus previously addressed to Justice Kagan,” and requested that the renewed application be directed to Chief Justice Roberts.
An order on the Supreme Court website noted that Rana’s renewed application has been “distributed for Conference of 4/4/2025” and “application” has been “referred to the Court.”
New York-based eminent Indian-American attorney Ravi Batra told PTI that Rana had made his application to the Supreme Court to prevent extradition, which Justice Kagan denied on March 6.
The application is now before Roberts, “who has shared it with the Court to conference so as to harness the entire Court’s view.”
Batra added that the issue before the Supreme Court is that since the President is constitutionally empowered to engage in foreign policy in the comity of nations and “it’s our national policy to be against terror - be it state-sponsored or Lone Wolf - is there any law or constitutional principle that the Court can justly rely upon to disagree with, and block, President (Donald) Trump’s extradition decision.”
Batra added that he fully expects “that in calmer times CJ Roberts would deny Rana the right to stay in America and avoid facing justice in India."
"During current times, with so many district judges blocking President Trump’s domestic agenda changes...the Supreme Court will enjoy denying Rana more easily.”
“After President Trump and PM (Narendra) Modi met in the Oval, President Trump announced in the press conference that Rana will be extradited to India, to face his victims and his justice. The current posture is akin to a fish out of water, but moving around a lot to try to get back into American waters,” Batra said.
Rana is seeking a stay of his extradition and surrender to India pending litigation (including exhaustion of all appeals) on the merits of a petition he filed on February 13.
In that petition, Rana argued that his extradition to India violates United States law and the United Nations Convention Against Torture "because there are substantial grounds for believing that, if extradited to India, petitioner will be in danger of being subjected to torture."
“The likelihood of torture in this case is even higher though as petitioner faces acute risk as a Muslim of Pakistani origin charged in the Mumbai attacks,” the application said.
The application also said that his “severe medical conditions” render extradition to Indian detention facilities a “de facto" death sentence in this case.
It cited medical records from July 2024 that confirm Rana has multiple “acute and life-threatening diagnoses”, including multiple documented heart attacks, Parkinson’s disease with cognitive decline, a mass suggestive of bladder cancer, stage 3 chronic kidney disease, and a history of chronic asthma, and multiple COVID-19 infections.
“Accordingly, petitioner certainly has raised a credible, if not compelling, factual case that there are indeed substantial grounds for believing he would be in danger of torture if surrendered to Indian authorities.
“Further, because of his Muslim religion, his Pakistani origin, his status as a former member of the Pakistani Army, the relation of the putative charges to the 2008 Mumbai attacks, and his chronic health conditions he is even more likely to be tortured than otherwise would be the case, and that torture is very likely to kill him in short order.”
The US Supreme Court denied Rana’s petition for writ of certiorari relating to his original habeas petition on January 21, 2025.
The application notes that on that same day, newly-confirmed Secretary of State Marco Rubio had met with External Affairs Minister Dr S Jaishankar.
When Prime Minister Modi arrived in Washington on February 12 to meet with Trump, Rana’s counsel received a letter from the Department of State, stating that “on February 11, 2025, the Secretary of State decided to authorize” Rana’s "surrender to India,” pursuant to the “Extradition Treaty between the United States and India”.
Rana’s Counsel requested from the State Department the complete administrative record on which Secretary Rubio based his decision to authorize Rana’s surrender to India.
The Counsel also requested immediate information of any commitment the United States has obtained from India with respect to Rana’s treatment. “The government declined to provide any information in response to these requests,” the application said.
It added that given Rana’s underlying health conditions and the State Department’s own findings regarding treatment of prisoners, it is very likely “Rana will not survive long enough to be tried in India.
“The issues raised by petitioner merit full and careful consideration, and the stakes are enormous for him. The very least the US courts owe the petitioner is a full chance to litigate these issues, including exercising their appellate rights, before he is consigned to the fate that awaits him at the hands of the Indian government,” the application said.
It added that if a stay is not entered, there will be no review at all, and the US courts will lose jurisdiction, and “petitioner will soon be dead. Therefore, we respectfully request that this Court enter an Order staying the extradition and surrender of petitioner pending a full and considered hearing on petitioner’s claims by the district court, circuit court, and, if necessary, a writ of certiorari to and further proceedings before this Court.”
US President Trump, during a joint press conference with Prime Minister Modi in the White House last month announced that Rana’s extradition to India has been approved.
The Supreme Court justices are Associate Justice Clarence Thomas, Associate Justice Samuel A Alito, Jr, Associate Justice Sonia Sotomayor, Associate Justice Elena Kagan, Associate Justice Neil M Gorsuch, Associate Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh, Associate Justice Amy Coney Barrett, and Associate Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson.
Let the Truth be known. If you read VB and like VB, please be a VB Supporter and Help us deliver the Truth to one and all.
Gurugram Police arrest BJP Yuva Morcha member for spreading fake murder story on social media
New Delhi: Gurugram Police have arrested BJP Yuva Morcha member Hariom Mishra, for allegedly spreading a fabricated and communally sensitive story on social media about the murder of a college student in Gurugram.
Mishra who is also known as Shaurya Mishra had shared a collage of four photographs on his X handle earlier this month. He claimed that a 24-year-old college student, identified as Nikita Agarwal, had been murdered by her classmate Arif Khan in Gurugram. In the post, he alleged that the woman was blackmailed, forced into prostitution, gangraped, and eventually killed. He also claimed that Arif dumped her body in a forest. The claims were presented as being based on police sources.
The post went viral and garnering over 1.5 lakh views, and was amplified by several right-wing social media handles across X, Facebook and Instagram. A verification of the claims revealed that no such incident had taken place in Gurugram. A search of credible news reports showed no record of any such murder. The police said this news would have inevitably attracted media attention if it were true.
On December 11, Gurugram Police publicly refuted the claims through their official X handle. They stated that the information which was being circulated was completely false. The police warned that legal action would be taken against those spreading misinformation. Despite the warning, Mishra neither deleted the post nor issued any clarification.
Police in Gurugram confirmed Mishra's arrest on December 16. The police said a FIR was filed after he continued to spread false information about the alleged murder of a Hindu woman by Muslim man. Police said Mishra, a resident of Uttar Pradesh's Kaushambi district, is now being investigated.
Gurugram Police spokesperson Sandeep Singh told The Print that the accused had deliberately misrepresented facts and used objectionable content to spread hatred along religious lines. “Such posts can create serious disturbances in society, and the police take these matters very seriously,” he said.
A reverse image search conducted by fact-checkers at Alt News, revealed that the photographs used in the viral post were unrelated to the claims, while two of the images were traced to a Pinterest account belonging to influencer Maulik Chopra and another image was sourced from an Instagram post by influencer Shivam Thakur featuring a woman named Deepanshi Rawat. The fourth image was found on an unrelated Instagram page. The images depicted different individuals and had no connection to any crime.
Police said they are also investigating Mishra’s motive behind sharing the false and provocative content.
