Mutual Legal Assistance and Extradition in Cross-Border Narcotics Trafficking: An India-Bangladesh Case Study

The India-Bangladesh border is porous, riverine and difficult to police, but it functions with high efficiency as a transit corridor for illicit narcotics. Both South Asian nations experience two-way flows of pharmaceutical opioids. Capitalising on the distinct structural traits of this network, organised crime syndicates manipulate jurisdictional gaps to carry out extensive trafficking activities. However, the existing legal framework designed to address these crimes was originally formulated to confront an entirely different set of challenges. The 2013 India-Bangladesh Extradition Treaty (amended in 2016) was negotiated against the backdrop of cross-border insurgency and added procedural simplifications that served those concerns rather than the evidentiary needs of narcotics cases. This study traces the bilateral legal framework, comprising both extradition mechanisms and the 2010 Mutual Legal Assistance Agreement, that governs cross-border narcotics prosecutions between the two states. This paper examines the 2010 Agreements, the 2013 Extradition Treaty as amended in 2016, the Mutual Legal Assistance in Criminal Matters Act 2012 (Bangladesh), the Narcotics Control Act 2018 (Bangladesh), the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act 1985 (India), Chapter VIII of the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita 2023 and the relevant multilateral instruments. The argument offered is doctrinal rather than empirical. This paper argues that although the bilateral mechanism is structurally established, it remains operationally deficient regarding narcotics offences: the two states already possess a dedicated mutual legal assistance agreement, a companion agreement naming illicit drug trafficking, designated Central Authorities with defined channels of correspondence, and domestic implementing machinery on both sides. What is missing sits a level below. Three structural deficiencies currently weaken this legal framework in drug-related prosecutions: a disparity in evidentiary requirements, a lack of operational protocols tailored specifically to narcotics under existing general agreements, and the absence of a defined mechanism for sharing confiscated assets. To address these challenges, this study recommends establishing a targeted protocol to resolve the evidentiary mismatch and procedural gaps, alongside a dedicated bilateral asset-sharing agreement to govern recovered proceeds.