After years of negotiations, senior home ministry officials from Nepal and India finalised the text of Agreement on Mutual Legal Assistance on Criminal Matters during the home secretary-level talks in New Delhi that concluded on Wednesday.

In the absence of a dedicated mutual legal assistance agreement and Extradition Treaty, security officials have long faced legal and administrative hurdles in handing over criminals to each other.

As the validity of the old extradition treaty expired long ago, security officials from Nepal and India have been extraditing individuals with criminal backgrounds on mutual understanding.

“We agreed on the text of the agreement on mutual legal assistance during the meeting,” Ram Chandra Tiwari, spokesperson for the home ministry, told the Post from New Delhi.

“In order to make it operational, the text should be approved by the respective cabinets of Nepal and India, followed by signatures at the home minister or home secretary level. Then it comes into operation,” Tiwari said.

They welcomed the finalisation of the text of the agreement and decided to work for an early conclusion of the revised extradition treaty, said a statement issued by India’s home ministry after the meeting.

With China, Nepal signed the Mutual Legal Assistance deal during Chinese President Xi Jinping’s Nepal visit in October, 2019.

But another key agenda of the meeting was reaching a consensus on an updated draft of the extradition treaty, which has been on table since 2005.

Both sides initially signed the draft extradition treaty in 2005 at the home secretary level, but due to differences on several provisions, negotiations had been deferred. “This time, we discussed the text of the proposed extradition treaty, but could not conclude it,” said Tiwari. “It needs some more time and negotiations.”

The two countries signed an extradition treaty in 1953, which has long since expired, and so both countries were working to update it. Nepal and India have differences over extraditing third country nationals, which is a major obstacle to a new treaty.

Besides these two perennial issues, the meeting reviewed several other bilateral security cooperation matters.

“We discussed and reviewed increasing security cooperation, border surveillance, stopping the movement of illegal people, taking strong vigilance and security checks on drug trafficking from India to Nepal, stopping the entry of third country nationals on both sides, among other things,” said Tiwari.

During the talks, both sides reviewed the entire gamut of bilateral security cooperation as well as border management and agreed to further strengthen it, said the Indian home ministry’s statement. Their deliberations included issues related to the repair and maintenance of boundary pillars; trans-border criminal activities; working of Border District Coordination Committees; strengthening of border infrastructure, particularly integrated check posts (ICPs), roads and railway networks; capacity building of various security-related institutions; and ways to strengthen cooperation in disaster risk reduction and management.

The meeting took place after nine years.

Gokarna Mani Duwadee, home secretary of Nepal, and his Indian counterpart Govind Mohan, had led the respected delegations.

Other issues that were discussed and reviewed in the meeting were combating transboundary criminal activities, human trafficking, circulation of fake currency notes, trafficking of narcotics and drugs, financial crimes, intelligence sharing, and increase in monitoring and surveillance in border areas.

An early completion of the Nepal Police Academy, which is being built with Indian support, expediting boundary infrastructure like ICPs, rail and roadway, cooperation in disaster management, and logistics support to Nepali security agencies by the government of India, among other issues, were also discussed, according to the officials.

Both delegations agreed to take strong steps to prevent the movement of third country nationals across the Nepal-India border, and decided to publicise information and other materials at major crossings.

“Mostly we will encourage people to cross the border from integrated check posts so that it will be easy to keep the record of their movements, including those of third country nationals,” one Nepali participant in the meeting told the Post.