B.C. court upholds extradition of pair accused of honour killing of Jaswinder Sidhu in India
Vancouver: Two British Columbia residents accused of hiring assailants to kill a relative in India because she married a poor rickshaw driver must be extradited to face murder charges, the province’s top court has ruled.
The B.C. Court of Appeal has denied Malkit Kaur Sidhu and Surjit Singh Badesha’s request for a stay of proceedings and a judicial review, which their lawyers filed as the RCMP escorted them onto a Delhi-bound plane last fall.
Indian authorities allege the pair were involved in the so-called “honour killing” of Sidhu’s daughter and Badesha’s niece, Jaswinder Kaur Sidhu, in 2000 after she married a man from a lower socio-economic class against her family’s wishes.
An RCMP operation to remove the two was halted in Toronto’s airport in September 2017 when Mounties learned lawyers for the accused had filed court applications for judicial review moments earlier.
The applications argued Sidhu and Badesha weren’t given the chance to review the federal justice minister’s decision to extradite them and that they were denied access to counsel.
In a written decision Tuesday, the court concluded the minister’s conduct did amount to an abuse of process, but it does not warrant a stay of proceedings.
“This is a close case but we conclude the balance favours denying the stay,” wrote Chief Justice Robert Bauman and Justice Sunni Stromberg-stein on behalf of a three-judge panel.
“The charges these applicants face are the most serious in our criminal justice system and the interests of India, and of our own community, in seeing them heard in court on their merits is very substantial.”
The pair have enjoyed a very “long and full day in court,” the judges added, noting their case has been considered by two justice ministers, the provincial appeal court and the Supreme Court of Canada.