In a sudden twist in the Jassi honour killing case, the Supreme Court of Canada has stayed the extradition of two prime accused--Malkiat Kaur and Surjit Singh Badesha, mother and maternal uncle of Jassi--just before a plane carrying them to India was about to take off.
The court announced that it would review the extradition as certain Facebook posts from India claimed that the two would be convicted immediately. Under the extradition treaty, the Indian government gives an undertaking of a fair trial but the posts claimed otherwise.
Michael Klein, who filed the application before the court, told media that they had sought a “judicial review” of the decision to extradite Jaswinder Jassi Sidhu’s mother Malkiat Kaur Sidhu and uncle Surjit Singh Badesha. Klein has also sought a review of the Canadian justice minister’s support for the extradition.
“The surrender cannot go forward,” Klein said, referring to the handing over of the pair to the Indian authorities.
A three-member police team was expected to take custody of Malkiat Kaur and Surjit Singh on Wednesday and return to India with the two in the evening.
Punjab Police officials said sketchy details were available from the three-member team about the revised court order and the Facebook posts. “We took the two in custody on Wednesday. We are trying to establish contact with the team and Canadian police but the time difference between the two countries is delaying the communication.”
The team was supposed to reach New Delhi at 9 pm on Thursday. The police had made arrangements for producing them before a Judge in Sangrur on Friday.
“The Canadian officials made the two accused and the Punjab Police team alight from the plane at the last minute. They had boarded the plane with due permission of the Canadian government,” said an official.
Jaswinder, a resident of Maple Ridge in British Columbia, married a man her family did not approve of and that summer, she was murdered in Punjab in what was an alleged contract killing at the behest of her family, including the two accused that the Indian authorities seek to take back to stand trial in India.
He said the application filed on Wednesday was based on “new information that has come to light” though he refused to divulge details about the nature of the information.
While the Supreme Court of Canada ruled recently in favour of the extradition going ahead, Klein said that in approaching the BC court of appeal, they were “in new territory.”
The Punjab Police comprises Kanwardeep Kaur, SP Headquarters, Patiala; Akashdeep Singh Aulakh, DSP, Dhuri; and Inspector Deepinder Pal Singh, they are expected to remain in Vancouver while the court rules on the application. The hearing is expected on Thursday.
25-year-old Jassi Sidhu was killed in June 2000 when a group attacked the couple, taking Jassi away in a car.
Her body was found in a canal in Punjab.
She had fallen in love with a rickshaw driver on a trip to India and secretly married him several years later against the wishes of her family who had already arranged a marriage.
In 2014, a British Columbia judge committed them for extradition to face the charges, prompting then-justice minister Peter MacKay to issue surrender orders, conditional on several assurances from India.
The ruling from the Supreme Court, delivered in Ottawa and reinstating the extradition order, was unanimous and based on assurances from the Canadian government that the two would not be ill-treated while in India for their trial.
