US Supreme Court justices to hear Tahawwur Rana's renewed application seeking stay of extradition to India

New York: US Supreme Court justices will hear next month Mumbai terror attack accused Tahawwur Rana’s renewed application, submitted to Chief Justice John Roberts, seeking a stay of his extradition to India.

Rana, 64, is currently lodged in the Metropolitan Detention Center in Los Angeles and submitted an "Emergency Application For Stay Pending Litigation of Petition For Writ of Habeas Corpus” on February 27, 2025 with Elena Kagan, Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States and Circuit Justice for the Ninth Circuit.

Earlier this month, Kagan had denied the application.

Rana had then renewed his "Emergency Application for Stay Pending Litigation of Petition for Writ of Habeas Corpus previously addressed to Justice Kagan,” and requested that the renewed application be directed to Chief Justice Roberts.

An order on the Supreme Court website noted that Rana’s renewed application has been “distributed for Conference of 4/4/2025” and “application” has been “referred to the Court.”

Rana is known to be associated with Pakistani-American terrorist David Coleman Headley, one of the main conspirators of the 26/11 attacks.

Headley conducted a recce of Mumbai before the attacks by posing as an employee of Rana’s immigration consultancy.

Rana was convicted in the US of one count of conspiracy to provide material support to the terrorist plot in Denmark and one count of providing material support to Pakistan-based terrorist organisation Lashker-e-Taiba which was responsible for the attacks in Mumbai.

New York-based Indian-American attorney Ravi Batra told PTI that Rana had made his application to the Supreme Court to prevent extradition, which Justice Kagan denied on March 6.

The application is now before Roberts, “who has shared it with the Court to conference so as to harness the entire Court’s view.”

Batra added that he fully expects “that in calmer times CJ Roberts would deny Rana the right to stay in America and avoid facing justice in India."

"During current times, with so many district judges blocking President Trump’s domestic agenda changes...the Supreme Court will enjoy denying Rana more easily.”

“After President Trump and PM (Narendra) Modi met in the Oval, President Trump announced in the press conference that Rana will be extradited to India, to face his victims and his justice. The current posture is akin to a fish out of water, but moving around a lot to try to get back into American waters,” Batra said.

Rana is seeking a stay of his extradition and surrender to India pending litigation (including exhaustion of all appeals) on the merits of a petition he filed on February 13.

In that petition, Rana argued that his extradition to India violates United States law and the United Nations Convention Against Torture "because there are substantial grounds for believing that, if extradited to India, the petitioner will be in danger of being subjected to torture."

“The likelihood of torture in this case is even higher though as petitioner faces acute risk as a Muslim of Pakistani origin charged in the Mumbai attacks,” the application said.

The application also said that his “severe medical conditions” render extradition to Indian detention facilities a “de facto" death sentence in this case.

It cited medical records from July 2024 that confirm Rana has multiple “acute and life-threatening diagnoses”, including multiple documented heart attacks, Parkinson’s disease with cognitive decline, a mass suggestive of bladder cancer, stage 3 chronic kidney disease, and a history of chronic asthma, and multiple COVID-19 infections.

“Accordingly, petitioner certainly has raised a credible, if not compelling, factual case that there are indeed substantial grounds for believing he would be in danger of torture if surrendered to Indian authorities.

“Further, because of his Muslim religion, his Pakistani origin, his status as a former member of the Pakistani Army, the relation of the putative charges to the 2008 Mumbai attacks, and his chronic health conditions he is even more likely to be tortured than otherwise would be the case, and that torture is very likely to kill him in short order.”

The US Supreme Court denied Rana’s petition for writ of certiorari relating to his original habeas petition on January 21, 2025.

The application notes that on that same day, newly-confirmed Secretary of State Marco Rubio had met with External Affairs Minister Dr S Jaishankar.

When Prime Minister Modi arrived in Washington on February 12 to meet with Trump, Rana’s counsel received a letter from the Department of State, stating that “on February 11, 2025, the Secretary of State decided to authorize” Rana’s "surrender to India,” pursuant to the “Extradition Treaty between the United States and India”.

Rana’s Counsel requested from the State Department the complete administrative record on which Secretary Rubio based his decision to authorize Rana’s surrender to India.

The Counsel also requested immediate information on any commitment the United States has obtained from India with respect to Rana’s treatment.

“The government declined to provide any information in response to these requests,” the application said.

It added that given Rana’s underlying health conditions and the State Department’s own findings regarding the treatment of prisoners, it is very likely “Rana will not survive long enough to be tried in India.

“The issues raised by petitioner merit full and careful consideration, and the stakes are enormous for him. The very least the US courts owe the petitioner is a full chance to litigate these issues, including exercising their appellate rights, before he is consigned to the fate that awaits him at the hands of the Indian government,” the application said.

It added that if a stay is not entered, there will be no review at all, and the US courts will lose jurisdiction, and “petitioner will soon be dead.

Therefore, we respectfully request that this Court enter an Order staying the extradition and surrender of petitioner pending a full and considered hearing on petitioner’s claims by the district court, circuit court, and, if necessary, a writ of certiorari to and further proceedings before this Court.”

US President Trump, during a joint press conference with Prime Minister Modi in the White House last month, announced that Rana’s extradition to India has been approved.

The Supreme Court justices are Associate Justice Clarence Thomas, Associate Justice Samuel A Alito, Jr, Associate Justice Sonia Sotomayor, Associate Justice Elena Kagan, Associate Justice Neil M Gorsuch, Associate Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh, Associate Justice Amy Coney Barrett, and Associate Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson.

A total of 166 people, including six Americans, were killed in the 2008 Mumbai terror attacks in which 10 Pakistani terrorists laid a more than 60-hour siege, attacking and killing people at iconic and vital locations in Mumbai.