Though his extradition will take time, real justice will come when his protectors, leaders and bankers, are brought to book

With just a couple of weeks to go before the general election, the arrest of fugitive diamond merchant Nirav Modi, the key accused in the Rs 13,500 crore Punjab National Bank scam, in London seems convenient for the ruling BJP and has given an edge to its “MainBhiChowkidar” campaign. It is a different matter though that had it taken up its policing responsibilities seriously early on and not at the fag end of its term, the likes of Nirav and his uncle Mehul Choksi wouldn’t have easily fled the country in the first place. Now with liquor baron Vijay Mallya’s extradition closer to reality, the BJP wants to play up Nirav’s arrest as an example of its intent to clean up society when fact of the matter is the businessman’s cover was blown by a UK daily and not by our government. This despite the fact that he was blatantly roaming free, had started a business, procured an insurance number, paid taxes to his area council and even planned plastic surgery to acquire a new identity as a UK resident. So no matter how much the BJP tries to appropriate the credit or the Opposition parties might say “I told you so”, the reality is his repatriation will take some time coming. In the end, his stay at an overcrowded jail during Holi is minuscule dispensation of justice considering the long road ahead to extradition. The economic offences against Nirav are, of course, stronger than they were in Mallya’s case but the documents are humongous. Even assuming that the London courts speed up the process, though they are in no way going to play by the political imperatives of India, it would take no less than a year to conclude matters.

Despite an extradition treaty with the UK, we have got back only one out of 28 most wanted in the last decade. The extradition process is so intricately complex and painstakingly time-consuming that most offenders abuse it to seek refuge in that country. There are layers and layers of inquiry and cross-checks of the veracity of the claims for extradition there, no matter how serious the offence may appear to us. Besides, an appeal for asylum, which would but naturally imply a threat perception of the fugitive in his home country, is vetted very seriously there. Then there’s the issue of human rights and political witch hunt. Mallya claimed immunity, citing a biased media trial back home that could impair a fair inquiry, a government-controlled, motivated probe and our poor prison conditions, which compared to UK, will always appear short. Article 9 of the Extradition Treaty between India and the UK recognises unjust and oppressive proceedings as a ground to deny requests of the home country. Nirav Modi is expected to appeal on similar lines. But the biggest question that hovers over us is once the agencies bring him back and get him to spill the names of bank officials and politicians who helped him in the entire fraud, will there be an unsparing crackdown on the latter irrespective of whoever is elected in May? The diamond merchant not only fraudulently got LoUs (letters of undertaking) issued and FLCs (foreign letters of credit) enhanced but sold faulty diamonds at high prices, converted crores of black money during demonetisation into white and travelled on a revoked passport. Nirav Modi is a byproduct of a corrupt system, and till the flagbearers of that system are brought to book, justice wouldn’t be fair.