Tags:
Journalism of Courage
On Wednesday, the High Court in London rejected the appeal of fugitive diamond merchant Nirav Modi and ordered his extradition to India.
Born into a Gujarati family, Nirav Modi founded Firestar Diamond and has a booming retail business across top cities of the world, including Delhi, Mumbai, New York, London, Hong Kong and Macau. In 2015, the inauguration of his first store in New York’s Madison Avenue was attended by Donald Trump. Nirav Modi’s retail market presence expanded, marking him as one of the youngest Indians in the Forbes Billionaires List 2017.
While his family was in India, the billionaire businessman grew up in Belgium, which is known as the centre for the international refined diamond trade. Though he went to Wharton Business School, he dropped out and moved to India to train in the diamond trade under his uncle. Years later, he started the Nirav Modi jewellery brand and is known to have rich clients in the international market.
Nirav Modi and his uncle Mehul Choksi are accused of routing transactions of about Rs 13,600 crore through fraudulent Letters of Undertaking (LoUs) of Punjab National Bank (PNB). Both of them left India in the first week of January 2018, weeks before the scam was revealed.
The Enforcement Directorate (ED) had alleged that Nirav Modi diverted over Rs 4,000 crore of the Rs 6,519 crore outstanding fraudulent LoUs issued by PNB to his firms, through 15 “dummy companies” based in the UAE and Hong Kong. The agency has submitted to the UK court transcripts of Nirav Modi’s conversations that allegedly show he tampered with evidence and intimidated witnesses while facing investigations in India. He also faces two additional charges of “causing the disappearance of evidence” and intimidating witnesses or “criminal intimidation to cause death”, which were added to the CBI case.
Modi was arrested in March 2019, and his extradition was approved by the court in February 2021, and by the UK government in April 2021. However, he still has not come to India. Since his arrest, he remained at Wandsworth Prison in southwest London.
And why is that?
In 2021, Modi filed an appeal in the High Court in London on the grounds of his mental health. His defense team argued that his mental condition had deteriorated, and they submitted that the courts take this into consideration before arriving at their judgment, especially in Covid-19 prison restrictions.
The leave to appeal in the High Court was granted on two grounds — under Article 3 of the European Convention of Human Rights (ECHR) to hear arguments if it would be “unjust or oppressive” to extradite Modi due to his mental state, and Section 91 of the Extradition Act 2003, also related to mental health.
Hearing Nirav Modi’s plea against extradition to India, the court had noted that India is a “friendly foreign power” and the UK must honour its extradition treaty obligations by not picking holes in the Indian government’s assurances that Nirav Modi will be provided with adequate medical care at Arthur Road Jail in Mumbai.
Lord Justice Jeremy Stuart-Smith and Justice Robert Jay, who presided over the appeal hearing at the Royal Courts of Justice earlier this year, said in their verdict that District Judge Sam Goozee’s Westminster Magistrates’ Court order from last year in favour of extradition was “sound”.
The ruling read, “Pulling these various strands together and weighing them in the balance so as to reach an overall evaluative judgment on the question raised by Section 91, 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.”
“It may be that the main benefit of the appeal has been to obtain the extensive further [Indian government] assurances that we have identified in the course of this judgment, which render the position clear to Mr Modi’s advantage and the District Judge’s decision supportable,” the judges ruled, as reported by PTI.
According to PTI, Modi can approach the Supreme Court on a point of law of public importance, to be applied to the Supreme Court against the High Court’s decision within 14 days of a High Court verdict. “However, this involves a high threshold as appeals to the Supreme Court can only be made if the High Court has certified that the case involves a point of law of general public importance,” it said.
If all avenues in UK courts are exhausted, Modi can seek a so-called Rule 39 injunction from the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR). Modi’s legal team is yet to comment on any plans to appeal the High Court verdict.
India is a designated Part 2 country by virtue of the Extradition Act 2003, which means it is the UK Cabinet minister who has the authority to order a requested person’s extradition after all legal issues are dealt with in the courts.
On October 31, 2022, a special court allowed the Enforcement Directorate (ED) to confiscate 39 properties belonging to Modi under the Fugitive Economic Offenders Act. A similar order was first passed in 2020. The Act has provisions to act against those evading the process of law by fleeing from the country. Under the Act, the court can declare a person a fugitive economic offender and subsequently also order confiscation of his properties. The properties include Rhythm House at Kala Ghoda, valuables seized from Modi’s bungalow in Alibaug and 22 cars. The ED had sought to confiscate 48 properties valued at Rs 929 crore.
