New Delhi: The Delhi Police on Thursday informed a Saket court that it has secured an Interpol Red Corner Notice against Russian national Viktoriia Basu, who is accused of fleeing India with her minor son despite a Supreme Court-mandated joint custody arrangement, and has initiated extradition proceedings against her through the Russian authorities.
In an Action Taken Report (ATR) filed before Judicial Magistrate First Class Deepakshi Rana at the Saket Courts, the police said a formal extradition request has been forwarded to the Ministry of Home Affairs for processing through the Ministry of External Affairs and the Indian Embassy in Moscow. The Red Corner Notice, an international alert circulated by Interpol, has been issued to facilitate the tracking of Basu across borders.
The case has its origins in a matrimonial dispute that has now escalated into an international legal chase spanning three jurisdictions' worth of procedure: a family court, the Supreme Court, and now the criminal and extradition machinery. The FIR was registered at the Defence Colony police station in 2025 on a complaint filed by Saikat Basu, an Indian national who married Viktoriia in 2017. The couple's child was born on October 29, 2020.
According to Saikat Basu's complaint, Viktoriia, along with her mother, left the family home without informing him and abandoned the child on March 13, 2023. He alleged that she thereafter filed a petition seeking exclusive custody of the child. The matter is pending before the Saket district court.
What makes the case unusual is the trajectory it took through the Indian judicial system. The custody battle reached the Supreme Court, which passed a joint custody order — an arrangement under which both parents were to share the care and upbringing of the child.
The court had stressed the need to balance the interests of the child with the sensitive nature of the case, even observing at one stage that it did not want to hurt India-Russia ties while expressing worry for the child.
Court records show that the top court had asked the Centre to trace the Russian woman at an earlier stage of the proceedings, after the child's father alleged that the child had been snatched from his custody. That judicial direction, coming from the highest court in the land, underscored how seriously the bench viewed the flouting of its custody orders.
Nearly a year after Viktoriia Basu allegedly left India with her minor son, flouting the Supreme Court-mandated shared custody arrangement, the Delhi Police have now moved to bring her back through diplomatic and international law-enforcement channels.
The ATR submitted by the Defence Colony police station details not only the steps taken against the main accused but also the investigation into an alleged associate. According to T Jaiswal, counsel for complainant Saikat Basu, the police have approached Yash Raj Films seeking details about a co-accused identified as Natasha, who is suspected of helping Viktoriia flee India. Her examination will be conducted after the company responds to the police query.
The investigating officer, meanwhile, has sought additional time from the court to file the final report, stating that the documents submitted by the complainant are still under scrutiny. The court was told that the documents are being analysed to establish the basis for further necessary action.
A Red Corner Notice is Interpol's highest-priority alert, asking law-enforcement agencies worldwide to locate and provisionally arrest a person pending extradition, surrender or similar legal action. It is, however, not an international arrest warrant in itself; the decision to arrest rests with the authorities of each country. The notice against Viktoriia Basu will enable immigration and police agencies across the globe to flag her movement.
Extradition from Russia to India is governed by the India-Russia extradition treaty, and the process typically involves a formal request routed through the Ministry of Home Affairs, the Ministry of External Affairs and the Indian mission in Moscow — the exact route the Delhi Police said it has followed in this case. Extradition proceedings can take a considerable amount of time, often years, depending on the legal standards and procedures of the requested state.
The case also highlights the growing complexity of cross-border custody disputes involving foreign nationals married to Indians. Legal experts note that cases in which one parent takes a child abroad in violation of Indian court orders have increased in recent years, and enforcement remains one of the weakest links in the system.
India is not a signatory to the Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction, which means that remedies in such cases depend on bilateral engagement, diplomacy and, as in this instance, criminal proceedings coupled with extradition requests.
Family law practitioners point out that the Supreme Court's custody orders in inter-country cases often rest on an expectation of compliance that is hard to enforce once a parent leaves the jurisdiction. The apex court has in several past cases expressed its helplessness when a parent defies orders from abroad, which is precisely why criminal complaints and Red Corner Notices have become an increasingly common parallel track for aggrieved parents.
The Saket court's proceedings on Thursday marked a significant step in the matter. The filing of the status report, the disclosure of the Red Corner Notice, and the movement of the extradition request through official channels together signal that the investigative machinery is now fully engaged.
The matter remains pending before the Saket district court, and the investigating officer has been given more time to complete the scrutiny of documents and file the final report. Further hearings will determine how the case progresses, including whether the extradition request advances through the diplomatic pipeline and whether the alleged associate, Natasha, faces examination.
For Saikat Basu, who has been pursuing the case since his complaint was filed, the developments offer a measure of movement in a dispute that has spanned matrimonial, civil and now criminal and international dimensions. The child at the centre of the dispute remains with the mother, and the Supreme Court's joint custody order remains unimplemented.
(Reporting based on The Times of India and NDTV.)