Ahead of this weekend’s Commonwealth Heads of Government summit in Trinidad and Tobago, Kamalesh Sharma said those guilty of "egregious dereliction of values" should not go unpunished.

Disciplinary offences within the Commonwealth’s 53 member states are dealt with by the Commonwealth Ministerial Action Group, which is made up of foreign ministers from nine countries armed with the power to suspend or expel.

But the action group tends to deal only with serious constitutional violations, such as Pakistan’s emergency imposition of emergency rule in 2007, which saw it suspended until elections the following year.

Human rights abuses, like the jailing or torture or political opponents, do not normally form part of its remit, leading to criticism that it is too soft on countries whose leaders act like dictators.

"We would like them to take more instances on board than they are now," said Cambridge-educated Mr Sharma, 68, who took up his post after serving as the Indian High Commissioner to London. "I would like to think that our definition of serious violations could embrace much more than it does now."