Proclaimed offender tag on NAFED accused held in Philippines set aside; Red Notice and extradition stand

Justice Sanjeev Narula held that a magistrate cannot infer abscondence from an unexecuted warrant when the CBI had the accused Australian address and never tried it, and that cheating and forgery are not Section 82(4) offences. The arrest warrants, the Red Notice and the extradition request stand.

The Delhi High Court has set aside a 2014 order declaring Rishi Levi, accused No. 7 in the CBI case over merchanting trade transactions at the National Agricultural Cooperative Marketing Federation of India, a proclaimed offender. Justice Sanjeev Narula held that the Karkardooma magistrate had no material to conclude that Levi was absconding when the charge-sheet carried his address in New South Wales and the agency never tried to serve him there, and that the offences he faces are outside Section 82(4) of the Code of Criminal Procedure altogether. The win is a limited one. Levi has been in Philippine custody since 9 September 2026, and the court refused to stay the extradition, the INTERPOL Red Notice or the arrest warrants behind it.

A 2006 FIR, a 2009 charge-sheet and an address in Ingleburn

The case goes back to FIR No. RC-BD1/2006/E/0009, registered by the CBI on 20 November 2006. The agency alleges that NAFED undertook merchanting trade transactions backed by letters of credit from Renfrew Security Bank & Trust (Offshore) Ltd., Cyprus, against overseas sales that were not genuine, and suffered a wrongful loss of about ₹233.40 crore.

The charge-sheet came on 23 December 2009, against thirteen accused, for criminal conspiracy under Section 120B read with Sections 409, 420, 467, 468 and 471 of the Indian Penal Code, together with the substantive offences attributed to each. Levi is said to have been the Indian agent of Renfrew Security Bank, to have helped arrange accommodation letters of credit, and to have received substantial commission from a co-accused. None of that was before the court for decision.

Levi joined the investigation once, in 2008, and then left India. On his own account he departed on 24 November 2008, a year before the charge-sheet; the CBI says he left to evade the criminal process and has not returned. The charge-sheet recorded two addresses for him, marked unverified: one at DLF Phase-I, Gurgaon, the other at James Street, Ingleburn, New South Wales. The second address became the pivot of the case.

Four years of process that never reached him

The trial court took cognizance on 26 February 2010 and issued summons. On 30 March 2010 the Additional Chief Metropolitan Magistrate recorded that Levi and two other accused had not been served and directed fresh service through the investigating officer. Nothing showed that the second attempt succeeded. On 25 July 2011 the ACMM noted his absence, without recording service. On 29 May 2013 non-bailable warrants were issued against him and the two other absent accused; the order did not say how service had been treated as complete or why non-bailable warrants were the next step.

The warrants came back unexecuted. On 12 August 2014 the ACMM, observing that the accused appeared to be absconding, directed process under Section 82 CrPC and the opening of look-out circulars. On 27 September 2014 the court recorded that the Section 82 process against Levi had been received back not properly served. In November 2014, relying on the process servers’ reports, the ACMM declared Levi and co-accused Harsh Shori proclaimed offenders and directed process under Section 83 for attachment of property. The petition dated the declaration 28 November 2014 and the CBI 10 November; the order itself was not in dispute.

A decade passed. Open-ended non-bailable warrants were issued on 26 November 2024 and an INTERPOL Red Notice on 17 March 2026. Once Levi was traced to the Philippines, a provisional arrest request went out in May 2026. On 10 June 2026 the Chief Judicial Magistrate at Rouse Avenue issued fresh open-ended warrants after the CBI noticed that Section 409 IPC had been left off the earlier ones, and on 1 July 2026 countersigned the extradition affidavit. The dossier went through diplomatic channels in July. On 9 September 2026 the Philippine authorities arrested him. Only then was the writ petition filed, under Articles 226 and 227 of the Constitution read with Section 528 of the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita, through a general power-of-attorney holder.

What was argued

Mr K.K. Manan, Senior Advocate, appearing with Ms Uditi Bali, Mr Luv Manan and others for Levi, argued that the proclamation was defective at its root: the summons were never served, and the CBI never pursued the Australian address through the Ministry of Home Affairs, the Ministry of External Affairs or any other recognised channel. He relied on Manish Popli v. CBI, 2026:DHC:2499, Hitesh Kumar v. State (NCT of Delhi), 2025:DHC:9529, Sucha Singh v. State of Punjab, 2024 SCC OnLine P&H 1798, and H.P. Nikhil Petrol Pump v. Ravi Kumar, 2024:PHHC:087055: a person already living abroad cannot be presumed to be absconding because process sent to an Indian address came back unserved. The offences charged, he added, are not within Section 82(4) at all. On extradition, he said Levi would return voluntarily on undertakings, and asked that the process be held in abeyance briefly so that the two governments could arrange his transfer.

Ms Rajni Gupta, Special Public Prosecutor for the CBI, appearing with Mr Shivender Gupta and Mr Siddharth Shekhar, took a threshold objection. The power of attorney, purportedly executed in the Philippines, had not been apostilled or otherwise authenticated for use in India, and the witness particulars and signatures were blank. She relied on T.C. Mathai v. District & Sessions Judge, Thiruvananthapuram, (1999) 3 SCC 614, Amrinder Singh v. State (NCT of Delhi), 2022 SCC OnLine Del 24, Haji Iqbal v. State of U.P., 2023 SCC OnLine All 829, Dr. Syed Shamsuddin Babar v. Ikram Ali Kaleem, 2002 SCC OnLine AP 1445, and Rakesh Mehra v. State of Uttarakhand, decided on 17 June 2026.

On merits, she said Levi knew of the investigation when he left in 2008 and took no step to submit to the trial court even after executing the power of attorney in 2024; the petition came only once he had been caught. She cited Abhishek v. State of Maharashtra, (2022) 8 SCC 282, and Yash Dev Singh Sejwal v. State, 2024:DHC:28: an accused who deliberately stays beyond the reach of the court earns no discretionary indulgence. As for the offer to return, she pointed to Article 15 of the India-Philippines Extradition Treaty, which provides for voluntary surrender, and opposed releasing Levi from custody abroad on a mere undertaking.

A petition filed from a Philippine jail through an attorney holder

Justice Narula dealt with maintainability first. T.C. Mathai, he said, holds that an attorney cannot stand in for an accused where the Code requires personal appearance; it does not say that every challenge brought through an attorney must be thrown out without looking at the nature of the proceedings and why the accused could not file personally. Amrinder Singh, Haji Iqbal, Babar and Rakesh Mehra refused to let an attorney substitute for an accused who would not submit to the criminal process. Against those stood Sachin Dev Duggal v. Directorate of Enforcement, 2025 SCC OnLine Del 9366, where this court entertained a challenge to non-bailable warrants filed through an attorney by a petitioner living abroad, and the Punjab and Haryana division bench in Mangal Dass Gautam v. State of Haryana, 2018 SCC OnLine P&H 8136, which makes maintainability turn on the facts, the authority conferred and the reasons for filing through an attorney.

Here the power of attorney did authorise the holder to pursue criminal proceedings on Levi’s behalf. The unsigned witness columns and the missing apostille went to proof and authentication, and the CBI was entitled to raise them. But the challenge was to judicial orders whose contents were on the record, not to facts known only to the attorney holder, and the petitioner was in detention abroad because of process initiated by India. The court declined to reject the petition at the threshold, while recording that this did not make the attorney a substitute for Levi’s own appearance before the trial court, or dispense with authentication wherever later proceedings required it.

Reason to believe, not a returned warrant

Section 82(1) lets a court issue a written proclamation where it has reason to believe that a person against whom a warrant has been issued has absconded or is concealing himself so that the warrant cannot be executed, with not less than thirty days from publication for appearance. Section 82(2) prescribes publication, including public reading at a conspicuous place in the town or village where the person ordinarily resides, and Section 82(3) makes the court’s written statement of due publication conclusive.

Justice Narula read these as two distinct stages. Before issuing a proclamation the court must have material giving it reason to believe the person has absconded or is hiding. Only then does publication come into play. “The mere return of a warrant unexecuted satisfies neither requirement,” he wrote, drawing on Hitesh Kumar. The satisfaction under Section 82 must rest on material indicating deliberate evasion; it cannot be inferred because process sent to an address where the accused no longer lives came back unexecuted.

The record did not meet that test. The CBI’s reply said summons could not be served at the known Indian addresses but disclosed no attempt to verify the Australian one or to serve there. Section 105 CrPC provided for reciprocal arrangements for service abroad, the Ministry of Home Affairs had issued guidelines on 11 February 2009 for serving process on persons living abroad, and by 2014 mutual legal assistance arrangements between India and Australia offered a recognised channel. The 12 August 2014 order nonetheless proceeded on nothing more than the return of the non-bailable warrants. When the agency already knew his overseas address and had shown no effort to pursue it, the failure to execute the warrants could not by itself justify an inference that he was hiding.

Later steps did not cure that. The 27 September 2014 order recorded that the Section 82 process had come back not duly served, and the November declaration then rested on the statements of two process servers. Even if the proclamation was later duly published, the judge held, publication could not supply the jurisdictional requirement of Section 82(1). The order identified nothing beyond Levi’s absence and the unexecuted process.

The precedents were read with care. Manish Popli had set aside a proclamation against an accused living in Australia where the agency, knowing his address, had not tried the recognised channels; the facts differed, since that accused had kept in touch with the agency and faced travel restrictions, but the principle applied. Sucha Singh and Nikhil Petrol Pump hold that residence abroad before the warrants cannot without more be equated with absconding; they do not hold that leaving India before a warrant always rules out evasion. Levi knew of the investigation before he left. That was relevant, the court said, but it did not relieve the magistrate of the duty to satisfy Section 82.

Cheating and forgery are not Section 82(4) offences

There was a second, independent defect. Section 82(4) allows a court, after the prescribed inquiry, to pronounce a person a proclaimed offender only where the proclamation concerns an offence listed in that provision. Sections 120B, 409, 420, 467, 468 and 471 IPC are not on the list. The court relied on its own decision in Sanjay Bhandari v. State (NCT of Delhi), 2018 SCC OnLine Del 10203, which draws the line between a person against whom a proclamation is validly issued under Section 82(1) and a person who may additionally be declared a proclaimed offender under Section 82(4), a distinction later applied in Yash Dev Singh Sejwal. Levi could not have been declared a proclaimed offender for these offences at all.

No summons to the Australian address, no material of absconding, no showing of due publication after 27 September 2014, and offences outside Section 82(4): the proclamation had to go.

Conduct that counts against him, but cannot rescue the order

The CBI’s objection on conduct did not go unanswered. Levi’s assertion that he had left before the FIR was contrary to the admitted chronology; the FIR dates from November 2006. His failure to return or approach the trial court for years called for an explanation. The judge gave particular weight to the 2024 power of attorney: whatever Levi knew in 2010 or 2014, by 2024 he was aware of the need to pursue remedies, yet nothing was filed until his arrest in September 2026. Blaming the attorney holder’s negligence did not account for the inaction. Abhishek and Yash Dev Singh Sejwal both say such an accused ordinarily deserves no discretionary indulgence.

Those principles, the court held, bear on the relief that can be granted. They do not authorise the continuation of a declaration made without satisfying the statute. A proclamation is judged by the law and the material at the time it was issued; conduct afterwards cannot retrospectively supply compliance that was absent. Equally, setting it aside does not absolve Levi of his obligation to face the prosecution. The proceedings begun on 12 August 2014 and the November 2014 declaration were set aside insofar as they concerned him, the arrest warrants expressly left untouched.

The Red Notice rests on the warrants, not the proclamation

Did the fall of the proclamation take the extradition with it? The court said no, on three grounds.

First, the 1 July 2026 order that Levi wanted stayed did not direct extradition. It recorded that the CBI officer signed the extradition affidavit and supporting documents in court, that the CJM countersigned them, and that they were handed to the investigating officer.

Second, extradition runs on a framework separate from Section 82. Article 8 of the India-Philippines Extradition Treaty requires a request through diplomatic channels and, for an accused, an arrest warrant from a judge, magistrate or other competent authority with the evidence the Treaty contemplates; Article 9 provides for provisional arrest, including through INTERPOL. Neither requires that the person first be declared a proclaimed offender under Indian procedure.

Third, a Red Notice is, as the Supreme Court explained in Bhavesh Jayanti Lakhani v. State of Maharashtra, (2009) 9 SCC 551, a mechanism of international police cooperation and not itself an arrest warrant; under INTERPOL’s Rules on the Processing of Data it must be supported by a valid arrest warrant or equivalent judicial decision. Here, warrants existed before the 2014 proclamation, open-ended warrants followed on 26 November 2024, the Red Notice came on 17 March 2026, and fresh warrants were issued on 10 June 2026 before the extradition papers were countersigned. “Setting aside the proclamation does not invalidate the warrants,” the judge held. The invalidity of the 2014 declaration therefore gave no ground to interfere with the 1 July 2026 order or to suspend the Red Notice or the extradition.

The court did add one direction. The CBI must communicate the judgment, through the prescribed channels, to India’s National Central Bureau for INTERPOL and to the authorities handling the extradition request, including the Philippine authorities, wherever the 2014 proclamation formed part of the material supplied to them, making clear that the warrants and the prosecution remain unaffected, so that the NCB can update its records and assess the Red Notice under Article 80(2) of INTERPOL’s Rules.

Voluntary surrender is his decision, not a court arrangement

On Levi’s offer to come back on undertakings, the court found that the Treaty and Philippine law already provide a route. Article 15 allows the Requested State, on the written consent of the person sought, to surrender him to the Requesting State as expeditiously as possible without further proceedings. The Philippine Supreme Court’s Rules on Extradition Proceedings, A.M. No. 22-03-29-SC, in force from 10 November 2025, provide in Rule 5 for voluntary surrender even during provisional arrest, through a notarised affidavit of waiver executed with counsel, which the Philippine court examines to confirm the consent is knowing and voluntary.

That mechanism, the judge said, also met the CBI’s practical concern: a return by this route would happen through the competent authorities, not by releasing Levi into private custody on an undertaking given to a Delhi court. No separate arrangement was warranted. Whether to consent was for Levi to decide on legal advice, and nothing in the judgment required him to waive any right under Philippine law. If surrender is permitted, the Indian authorities may coordinate his transfer; on arrival he is to be produced before the competent court without avoidable delay, with any bail or custody application decided on its own footing.

Levi had also raised his nationality: the charge-sheet calls him an Indian national, later material refers to Australian citizenship, and he claims residence and citizenship-related rights in the Philippines. The court left that open, noting only that Article 3 of the Treaty does not preclude the Requested State from extraditing its own nationals.

Order

The petition was partly allowed. The November 2014 order of the ACMM, East District, Karkardooma Courts, was set aside insofar as it declared Rishi Levi a proclaimed offender, together with the proclamation proceedings begun on 12 August 2014; the Section 83 process founded on it ceases to operate against him. The arrest warrants of May 2013, November 2024 and June 2026 are not cancelled, none having been adjudicated, and the prosecution continues, with the trial court free to take permissible steps to secure his presence. The stay of the 1 July 2026 order and the extradition was declined; the Red Notice and extradition request need not, by themselves, be suspended or withdrawn. The CBI is to make the communication directed in paragraph 43. Levi remains free to invoke Article 15 of the Treaty and Rule 5 of the Philippine Rules. The court expressed no opinion on the merits of the allegations, the independent validity of the warrants, or the legality of his detention under Philippine law. The petition and pending applications were disposed of in those terms; the matter was reserved on 16 October 2026 and pronounced on 27 October 2026.