HC dismisses Babloo Srivastava's plea on no more

NEW DELHI: The Delhi High Court on Friday dismissed a petition filed by underworld don Babloo Srivastava seeking direction to the government not to try him in any more criminal cases, holding the relief was "speculative".

"The petitoner's (Babloo's) prayer for relief that there should be no further violation of the extradition warrant and no trial of any case should take place is a speculative relief sought by him," Justice S N Dhingra said.

Turning down Srivastava's plea, Justice Dhingra observed that he had not mentioned any of the other cases for which he was likely to be tried and said that the relief could not be granted to him.

The court also rejected his plea for compensation of Rs 100 crore for facing trials in contravention of his extradition terms, noting they had not been misused.

Babloo, in his petition had alleged that the Centre in its extradition request in August, 1995, had sought his custody for trying him in four criminal cases but after his arrival here, the police registered several cases in violation of the terms and conditions.

He had also requested the court to declare his extradition request as 'illegal', accusing the Centre of flouting the terms on which he was deported from Singapore.

The Centre's counsel, on the other hand, opposed his plea stating that extradition was a diplomatic process between the two countries and the judiciary had no right to intervene.

He had further said that the trials in a number of cases were complete and in a few of them were yet to be completed and that the issue was now being raised after a decade of Babloo's arrival from Singapore.
   
Babloo was extradited from Singapore to face trial in several criminal cases in Uttar Pradesh and other parts of northern India.