LONDON: Fugitive diamond merchant Nirav Modi, who is wanted in India to face trial on fraud and money laundering charges, has claimed he has no funds and has pledged over 150,000 pounds to pay court-ordered legal costs. resorting to borrowing a higher amount. The 52-year-old former billionaire last year lost his legal battle in the UK’s highest court against being extradited to India in connection with an estimated $2 billion Punjab National Bank (PNB) loan scam case. But his case is now said to be ‘statutory barred’, indicating further pending litigation. Meanwhile, Nirav is behind bars at Wandsworth Prison in south-west London, from where he will appear via videolink for a hearing at Barkingside Magistrates’ Court in east London on Thursday over unpaid legal costs, or fines, of 150,247 pounds ordered by the High Court. Introduced from In London, relating to his extradition appeal proceedings.
Magistrates at a procedural hearing for the court fine allowed £10,000 to be paid a month ahead of a review hearing due in six months, according to officials. When asked how he intended to finance the monthly amount, Nirav told the court that he was borrowing the money as he did not have enough funds as his properties in India were seized during the extradition proceedings.
In December last year, a two-judge bench at the Royal Courts of Justice in London rejected Nirav Modi’s application for leave to appeal to the Supreme Court on the grounds of suicide risk and the need to substantiate a point of law. His application was also rejected, thereby ending his extradition. Appeal options in UK courts.
The matter could be subject to further litigation, UK Home Office sources have said, which is likely to point to a parallel secretive political asylum appeals process.
At the final extradition appeal hearing in the case at the London High Court in November 2022, Justice Jeremy Stuart-Smith and Justice Robert J ruled that they were “far from convinced that Mr Modi’s mental state and suicide risk are such that It would be either unjust or oppressive to extradite him”.
His judgment also acknowledged that the Indian government would take with ‘due seriousness’ its assurances on Nirav’s medical care after he is extradited and lodged in Barrack 12 of Mumbai’s Arthur Road Jail.
Three years after Nirav Modi was arrested on an extradition warrant based on allegations against the businessman by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) and the Enforcement Directorate (ED) in March 2019, the appeal was rejected.
There are three sets of criminal proceedings against diamantaires in India ‘the CBI case of fraud on PNB, which caused a loss of over £700 million, the ED case relating to the alleged laundering of the proceeds of that fraud and the third set of CBI proceedings. In criminal proceedings involving alleged interference with evidence and witnesses.
Britain’s then Home Secretary Priti Patel had ordered Nirav’s extradition on the basis of the April 2021 decision of the Westminster Magistrate Court of Judge Sam Gozzi.