Big Setback For Nirav Modi As UK Court Orders Extradition To India In PNB Scam

Nirav Modi, the runaway diamond mogul from Gujarat, is now a step closer to being extradited to India from the UK. Nirav Modi fled to London after allegedly cheating a government bank of over ?11,000 crores.

Nirav Modi

London court's verdict

The High Court in London on Wednesday rejected the appeal of the fugitive diamond merchant and ordered his extradition to India to face charges of fraud and money laundering, amounting to an estimated USD 2 billion in the Punjab National Bank (PNB) loan scam case, news agency PTI reported.

The verdict was delivered by Lord Justice Jeremy Stuart-Smith and Justice Robert Jay, who presided over the appeal hearing earlier this year.

Nirav, 51, who remains at the Wandsworth prison in south-east London, was granted permission to appeal against District Judge Sam Goozee¡¯s Westminster Magistrates¡¯ Court ruling in favour of extradition last February.

Nirav's appeal was on the grounds of his mental health. The leave to appeal in the High Court was granted on two grounds ¨C under Article 3 of the European Convention of Human Rights (ECHR) to hear arguments if it would be ¡°unjust or oppressive¡± to extradite Nirav due to his mental state and Section 91 of the Extradition Act 2003, also related to mental ill health.

TOI

"...We are far from satisfied that Mr Modi's mental condition and the risk of suicide are such that it would be either unjust or oppressive to extradite him," the court said, according to news agency PTI.

The process to bring Nirav from London to Mumbai's Arthur Road Jail still has some way to go. His uncle, Mehul Choksi, who has taken up citizenship of Antigua and Barbuda, is also accused of cheating PNB and is wanted by Indian agencies.

His option

Nirav can, however, approach Britain's Supreme Court against the High Court's order within 14 days. But there's a catch - he can appeal in the Supreme Court only if the high court agrees that his case involves a point of law of general public importance.

If this option is spent, Nirav is free to approach the European Court of Human Rights. In the meantime, the fugitive businessman will remain at the London jail where he was first kept after he was arrested in March 2019.

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PNB case

Nirav is wanted by both the Central Bureau of Investigation and the Enforcement Directorate. The fugitive and the firms he controlled allegedly leveraged the loopholes in the banking system by seeking letters of undertaking, or LoU, and raising credit from foreign banks to pay its merchants.

An LoU is a bank guarantee issued for overseas import payments. For years, Nirav Modi and his three firms had been allegedly taking LoUs from PNB. These bank guarantees allegedly helped Mr Modi raise short-term loans from foreign branches of Indian banks to pay suppliers of raw material. The money was then transferred through a maze of sorts.

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