Nirav Modi, the fugitive diamond service provider wished in India to face trial on fraud and cash laundering fees, on Thursday suffered one other setback in his authorized battle in opposition to his extradition because the Excessive Courtroom right here denied him permission to attraction in opposition to the transfer within the UK Supreme Courtroom.
In a judgment order pronounced on the Royal Courts of Justice in London, Lord Justice Jeremy Stuart-Smith and Justice Robert Jay dominated that “the Appellant’s (Nirav Modi) utility for permission to attraction to the Supreme Courtroom is refused”.
In a ruling delivered speedily inside simply over per week of the UK’s Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) submitting its response to the 51-year-old diamantaire’s permission to attraction utility on behalf of the Indian authorities, the judges additionally dominated that the “certification of some extent of regulation be refused” that will have allowed his plea to progress to the upper courtroom.
An attraction on the grounds of some extent of regulation of common public significance is a excessive threshold that’s not met fairly often and this refusal considerably limits Modi’s remaining authorized choices within the UK in opposition to extradition to India.
The most recent Excessive Courtroom order additionally directs Modi to pay the authorized prices associated to the newest utility, assessed within the sum of GBP 150,247.00.
Final month, Modi misplaced an attraction on psychological well being grounds when the identical two-judge Excessive Courtroom bench dominated that his danger of suicide isn’t such that it could be both unjust or oppressive to extradite him to India to face fees within the estimated USD 2 billion Punjab Nationwide Financial institution (PNB) mortgage rip-off case.
Modi, in the meantime, stays behind bars at Wandsworth Jail in London since his arrest on an extradition warrant in March 2019.
“In the event that they refuse to certify a query and depart to attraction then that’s the finish of the street,” the CPS beforehand defined, with relation to the appeals course of in UK courts.
As his try to have his attraction heard within the Supreme Courtroom in London has now failed, in precept, Modi can apply to the European Courtroom of Human Rights (ECHR) to try to block his extradition on the idea that he is not going to obtain a good trial and that he will probably be detained in circumstances that breach Article 3 of the European Conference on Human Rights, to which the UK is a signatory.
The edge for an ECHR attraction can be extraordinarily excessive as a result of he would additionally must show that his arguments on these grounds earlier than the UK courts have been beforehand rejected.
UK Residence Workplace sources have indicated that it’s nonetheless unknown when extradition might happen as Modi nonetheless has authorized challenges open to him.
The dismissal of the Excessive Courtroom attraction final month marked a significant win for the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) and Enforcement Directorate (ED) case in opposition to the businessman, who has been in jail since his arrest on an extradition warrant in March 2019.
There are three units of felony proceedings in opposition to the diamantaire in India – the CBI case of fraud on the PNB which prompted losses equal to over GBP 700 million, the ED case regarding the alleged laundering of the proceeds of that fraud and a 3rd set of felony proceedings involving alleged interference with proof and witnesses within the CBI proceedings.
Then UK Residence Secretary, Priti Patel, had ordered Modi’s extradition primarily based on Decide Sam Goozee’s Westminster Magistrates’ Courtroom ruling in April 2021 and the case is now in its last phases of authorized appeals.