The extradition of Ravi Shankaran, the main accused in the Naval war-room leak case, is still bogged down in procedural details as district judge Nicholas Evans on Friday decided delay his formal ruling on admissibility of evidence and start the extradition case.
Forty-seven-year-old Shankaran, a close relative of the then Naval Chief Admiral Arun Prakash, has faced an Interpol red corner notice since 2006. He was arrested by the Metropolitan police on April 21 last year in London and has been fighting his extradition to India since then.
Judge Evans on Friday indicated that a prima facie case against Shankaran was admissible. However, he did not rule on the issue.
The next procedural hearing for the case has been posted to January 27 when Shankaran’s lawyers, led by barrister James Lewis QC, and the prosecution, led by barrister John Hardy QC, will argue over the admissibility of new evidence in the case. The judge will decide on the issue and the next hearing in the case will be on June 6 and 7, when the Justice Evans is expected to rule on the admissibility of the extradition case against Shankaran.
It will be at that point that the judge will formally start the case of extradition.
Till now, the hearings of the case have been involved with procedural issues about the admissibility of evidence sent by the Indian government to facilitate the extradition.