New Delhi, June 8 (IANS) The Supreme Court has issued notice on a plea filed by a Chinese national seeking permission to travel home for a brief period to visit his ailing mother, observing that the matter deserved consideration on “purely humanitarian grounds”.

A bench of Justices Dipankar Datta and Satish Chandra Sharma directed the issuance of notice and impleaded the Ministry of External Affairs as an additional respondent in the matter in view of the absence of an extradition treaty between India and China.

“Having regard to the fact that the petitioner is a Chinese national who seeks to visit China for a brief period to attend to his ailing mother, on purely humanitarian grounds, we issue notice,” the Justice Datta-led Bench said in its order passed on June 5.

The apex court posted the matter for further hearing in the week commencing August 10.

The petitioner, Liu Fengfei, has challenged an order of the Allahabad High Court which had declined him permission to travel to Nanyang city in China’s Henan Province for two months to visit his mother, who is stated to be suffering from cancer and is critically ill.

Noting the absence of an extradition arrangement between the two countries, the Supreme Court said: “We have noticed the absence of an extradition treaty between India and China; hence, we consider it expedient to implead the Union of India through the Ministry of External Affairs as an additional respondent in the present petition.”

The top court clarified that the impleadment of the Centre was “solely to explore the possibility of finding out a way to enable the petitioner to be by the side of his mother for some time”.

According to the records, Liu is facing trial in UP’s Gautam Budh Nagar in a case registered under Sections 419, 420, 467, 468, 471, 201 and 120B of the IPC as well as Section 66 of the Information Technology Act.

Before the Allahabad High Court, the petitioner had contended that he was an engineering professional associated with a private company and had sought permission on humanitarian grounds to visit his critically ill mother in China. He argued that the trial court had rejected his request in a mechanical manner despite the medical emergency in his family. However, the Uttar Pradesh government opposed the plea, submitting that the petitioner was a Chinese national facing serious criminal charges and posed a flight risk.

The state government had argued that India did not have any extradition treaty or legal framework with China that could ensure his return if he left the country.

Dismissing the plea, the Allahabad High Court, in an order passed on February 24, had observed that “the applicant is unacceptably high flight risk which poses a danger to the process of law”.

A single-judge Bench of Justice Vivek Kumar Singh had further observed that “Union of India and Republic of China do not have any extradition treaty arrangement” and that if the applicant failed to return, “the criminal justice process would come to a dead end”. The Allahabad High Court had held that permitting the applicant to travel abroad carried a high risk as “it could be possible that the applicant would not return to face criminal trial proceedings”.

–IANS

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