Justice In Sight; Instrumental lawyer Dayan Krishnan to lead prosecution
- PTI
- Apr 10, 2025
- 5 min read
Advocate led accused Tahawwur Rana’s extradition process as well
New Delhi: Senior advocate Dayan Krishnan, who led India’s arguments for the extradition of 26/11 accused Tahawwur Rana in a US court, is set to lead the National Investigation Agency’s (NIA) prosecution in Delhi.
Rana, a close associate of 26/11 main conspirator David Coleman Headley alias Daood Gilani, a US citizen, is learnt to be on his way to India after the US Supreme Court on April 4 dismissed his review plea against his extradition to India.
Krishnan, who has been associated with the extradition proceedings since 2010, will have assistance from Special Prosecutor Narender Mann, a seasoned criminal lawyer, who has earlier represented the Central Bureau of Investigation in the Delhi High Court.
The prosecution team will also comprise advocates Sanjeevi Sheshadri and Sridhar Kale aside from the NIA counsel, it is learnt.
The turning point in the extradition case came in May 2023. Rana’s trial had begun in 2018.
“The most important decision of his extradition came on May 16, 2023, being the first judgment by the Magistrate Judge, US District Court of Central District of California,” said a source close to the extradition proceedings.
The Magistrate Court while allowing the extradition confirmed Krishnan’s opinion — he argued that Rana’s case was not of double jeopardy.
The proceedings, the source said, saw a spirited legal fight between Krishnan and another extradition veteran Paul Garlick QC, who was representing Rana.
Garlick, the source said, argued that it was a case of double jeopardy. Krishnan, on the contrary, argued that an accused’s conduct didn’t determine the circumstances but the elements of the crime.
Double jeopardy, in legal parlance, means an accused being punished twice for the same offence or crime.
The submissions of Krishnan, who represented the government of India along with the US Department of Justice, were accepted by the court.
The second crucial milestone for the Indian government came when Rana’s appeal was dismissed by a US District Judge on August 10, 2023.
Following the dismissal of his appeal, Rana moved the US Court of Appeals 9th Circuit, but was faced with another setback for his plea was rejected on August 15, 2024, the source said.
Rana, 64, a Pakistan-born Canadian national, then moved the US Supreme Court, which denied him any reprieve on January 21, 2025.
Finally, on April 4, the US Supreme Court dismissed the review plea filed by Rana as a last-ditch attempt, finally paving the way for his extradition, the source added.
Delhi court receives trial records of 26/11 attacks
New Delhi: A Delhi court has received the trial records of the 26/11 Mumbai attacks ahead of its alleged mastermind Tahawwur Hussain Rana’s arrival in India from the US, a court source said.
Rana, a key accused in the 2008 attacks, is being brought to India on a special flight on Thursday after his last-ditch attempt to evade extradition failed as the US Supreme Court justices rejected his application.
The records were received by the court of District Judge Vimal Kumar Yadav recently in pursuance of his January 28 direction to the staff of a Mumbai court to send the records.
The judge passed the order on an application moved by the National Investigation Agency in Delhi, seeking to retrieve the records from Mumbai.
The trial court records were previously sent to Mumbai due to the presence of multiple cases related to the 26/11 attacks in both cities.
Who is Narender Mann?
The Ministry of Home Affairs appointed Advocate Narender Mann as the Special Public Prosecutor for the trial against 26/11 Mumbai terror attack accused Tahawwur Hussain Rana in Delhi.
Mann, a law graduate from Delhi University in 1990, has represented the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) and appeared in several important cases, including attempt on life of former CJI A N Ray by Ananda Margis.
He was the Special Public Prosecutor for the CBI in the Delhi High Court between January, 2011 and April, 2019.
Mann also represented the CBI in a Medical Council scam, AICTE scam, the CWG cases, CGHS societies scam and cases under FCRA, Prevention of Corruption Act, and banking frauds. He also appeared in cases including Jain-diary Hawala case, the JMM MPs case, Bofors case, and cooperative society cases.
‘Rana will get convicted in India’
Mumbai terror attacks accused Rana will definitely get convicted in the country possibly with a death sentence for his involvement in the dastardly terrorist act, former home secretary Gopal Krishna Pillai said on Thursday.
“Rana was the person who set up the immigration office in Mumbai in which David Headley was given the job and then he got a visa to come to India. The cover for Headley was provided by Rana. So, he and Headley were very close and they knew what was happening. So that is something which his interrogation in India will bring out,” Pillai told PTI Videos.
“Rana will definitely get convicted in India and possibly (get) a death sentence or 10 years or more,” said Pillai, who took over as the home secretary barely six months after the terror strike.
BJP hails Rana extradition, claims Congress was ‘soft’ on terror
Mumbai attack accused Tahawwur Rana’s extradition reflects “new India’s” zero-tolerance resolve towards terrorism under Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the BJP said on Thursday while accusing the Congress of being soft on terror for “vote-bank politics”.
Addressing a press conference at the BJP headquarters, national spokesperson Shehzad Poonawalla said Rana’s extradition was a “big achievement” of the Modi government and its security agencies.
It is also a tribute to the security personnel who made the supreme sacrifice while fighting Pakistan-sponsored terrorists and a “big step” towards rendering justice to more than 160 people, including those from the US, Israel, France, Germany, Italy and other countries, killed in the attack, he said.
“This extradition is not an ordinary extradition. This is a reflection of new India’s resolve which Prime Minister Narendra Modi had described in 2019, saying that if anyone dared to attack India’s unity, integrity, respect and its innocent people, the new India would bring such terrorists to justice,” Poonawalla said.
The BJP spokesperson said Rana was being brought back to make him face justice due to a “sea change” in the “attitude and mindset” of the government under Modi towards terrorism and terror attacks.
“Earlier, especially between 2004-14 (when the Congress-led UPA was at the helm), there was not a single month when there was no major terror attack in some major city of India,” he said.
The erstwhile government remained a mute spectator to terror attack incidents and did not take “concrete steps” against such terrorists and the sponsors of terrorism in India, he charged without naming the Congress.
Modi govt didn’t initiate Rana’s extradition, we did: Congress
With Mumbai terror attack accused Tahawwur Rana being extradited from the US, the Congress on Thursday said the Modi government did not initiate the process, instead it benefited from the “mature, consistent and strategic diplomacy” that begun under the UPA.
Congress leader and former Home Minister P Chidambaram said the government did not secure any breakthrough to make the extradition possible, nor is it the result of any grandstanding.
Chidambaram added that it was a testament to what the Indian state can achieve when diplomacy, law enforcement and international cooperation are pursued sincerely and without any kind of chest-thumping.
“While the Modi government is rushing to take credit for this development, the truth is far from their spin,” Chidambaram said.
This extradition is the culmination of a decade-and-a-half of painstaking diplomatic, legal and intelligence efforts which were initiated, led, and sustained by the UPA government in close coordination with the United States, he added.
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