In February, the Westminster Magistrates’ Court cleared Nirav Modi’s extradition, finding him guilty of fraud and concealment within the Punjab commercial bank (PNB) scam and dismissing his claims that he wouldn’t get a good trial in India. UK Home Secretary Priti Patel subsequently approved the extradition in April.
Nirav Modi had approached the united kingdom supreme court to determine if there have been any grounds for an appeal against Patel’s decision or the Westminster Magistrates’ writ . This appeal was rejected by a supreme court judge on Tuesday.
A UK supreme court official told PTI the permission to appeal was “rejected on paper”, leaving Nirav Modi with the choice of creating his case at an oral hearing within the supreme court through a renewed “leave to appeal” application that has got to be filed within five days.
It is believed Nirav Modi plans to form such an application, and a judge will then determine if the matter should proceed to a full appeal hearing.
People conversant in developments said on condition of anonymity that Tuesday’s decision by the united kingdom supreme court was only one step in what's set to be a protracted legal process. there's also speculation that Nirav Modi will have the choice of approaching the ecu Court of Human Rights after exhausting all his legal options within the UK.
The 50-year-old businessman has been held at Wandsworth Prison in southwest London since March 2019, when he was arrested on the idea of India’s extradition request. he's the second high-profile economic offender, after former liquor baron Vijay Mallya, whose extradition has been cleared by an attempt court within the UK. Mallya lost his appeal against extradition in April 2020, though British government has said his extradition is being delayed by a “confidential legal issue”.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi sought the speedy extradition of both economic offenders during a virtual summit together with his British counterpart Boris Johnson in May.
In its judgement in February, the Westminster Magistrates’ Court had asserted that Nirav Modi features a case to answer and said that he, along side his brother Nehal Modi and others, had defrauded PNB, laundered the cash taken from the bank and conspired to destroy evidence and intimidate witnesses.
Nirav Modi’s argument that India has poor prison conditions was rejected by Westminster Magistrates’ Court, with the judge saying that conditions at Barrack Number 12 in Arthur Road Jail in Maharashtra, where he are going to be held, “are far less restrictive and much more spacious than the present regime he's being held in within the prison estate in our own jurisdiction”.
