New Delhi: Slamming the Government for sending a CBI team with an expired warrant to extradite Purulia arms drop case accused Kim Davy, BJP on Thursday said it is a "big embarrassment" and "another blunder" after the goof-up in India`s `50 most wanted` list given to Pakistan.
The CBI team was left red-faced after the defence counsel of Davy pointed out during the court proceedings in Copenhagen that arrest warrant issued by special CBI court against his client has expired in January this year.
Referring to government`s response on appointment of the Central Vigilance Commissioner as well as on goof-up in the `most wanted` list, Swaraj said "oversight" has become the "all time excuse" for the UPA dispensation.
"They say expired warrant is an `oversight`. Oversight in CVC papers. Oversight in India`s Most Wanted List. It is an all time excuse," she said.
A five-member constitutional bench of the Denmark High Court is hearing the plea of the Denmark government which challenged a lower court order against the extradition of Davy to India.
The decision to dispatch the CBI team was taken days after Davy and one of the convicted persons in the case, Peter Bleach, had alleged that the Purulia arms drop operation was planned by the Indian government and its intelligence agencies to destabilise the Left Front government in West Bengal.
The government had, however, quickly denied the allegation saying it was aimed at misleading the prosecuting agency and the court in Denmark which are seized with the matter of his extradition to India.
The CBI team which reached Copenhagen on May 16 to assist local authorities immediately sought a fresh warrant against Davy from the special CBI court.
The CBI had registered the case on December 28, 1995 after sophisticated arms including AK-47 assault rifles, anti-tank grenades and other weapons were dropped from a foreign plane in the fields of Purulia in West Bengal on the night of December 17, 1995.
An Interpol Red Corner Notice was issued against Kim Davy in 1996 on the request of the agency. Since he was traced to Denmark in 2001, efforts continued to extradite him to India even though there was no extradition treaty between the two countries.