Pakistani-Canadian Tahawwur Rana faces the grim prospect of facing justice in India for the 26/11 Lashkar-e-Tayyiba (L-e-T) terrorist attack on Mumbai in which about 175 people were killed after a federal appeals court in the US quashed his appeal against extradition.

The California-based Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals on Thursday upheld a lower federal court verdict permitting his extradition and ruled that the 1997 extradition treaty between India and the US covered his alleged offences.

Rana's only legal recourse now against extradition is to appeal to the Supreme Court where the chances of even getting a hearing are slim.

According to the Justice Department, the Supreme Court hears less than 1 per cent of the appeals it receives.

Rana’s extradition would be a partial fulfillment of India’s attempts to get the US-based L-e-T accomplices to face trial in India as the US has refused to extradite Rana’s Pakistani-American accomplice Daood Gilani who uses the name David Headley.

Headley had worked as an informant for the US government’s Drug Enforcement Agency and after admitting to 12 terrorism-related charges, he made a deal to cooperate with the US government on the condition that he is not extradited.

A three-panel appeals court bench heard the habeas corpus petition against the Central California District Court judgement allowing Rana's extradition.

Judge Milan Smith, who wrote the opinion for the bench, said that “India provided sufficient competent evidence” to support the initial order of a magistrate judge’s “finding of probable cause that Rana committed the charged crimes” to allow the extradition.

Rana, a Canadian citizen living in Chicago, was arrested in the US in 2009 for plotting to bomb a Danish newspaper, Jyllands-Posten, that published a controversial image of Prophet Mohammed.

He faced three main charges in a Chicago federal court relating to involvement in the Danish case, providing support to L-e-T and conspiring with the Mumbai attack.

He was acquitted of the Mumbai attack charge, but convicted of the other two and sentenced to 14 years.

The appeals court ruled that his acquittal in the Chicago case on the Mumbai attack charges did not affect the extradition because in India he faces several different charges.

The charges in India include conspiracy, waging war, murder, terrorism, and forgery, the judgement noted.

Rana was released after seven years on compassionate grounds during the Covid pandemic and India requested his extradition to face trial there, which the magistrate judge approved.

Rana is a former Pakistani army doctor who set up an immigration service after immigrating to Canada.

The judgement mentioned Rana helping Headley get a five-year visa for India under the pretext of setting up a branch of his business there.

Headley used the visa to help plot the L-e-T terror rampage that shut down the city for four days by surveilling Taj Hotel and other targets.

Headley had informed Rana about the surveillance activities, the judgement said.

Judge Smith noted in the judgement that “Rana commended the terrorists who carried out the attacks and stated that the people of India ‘deserved it’”.