In a setback to fugitive diamond merchant Nirav Modi, wanted in India to stand trial on fraud and money laundering charges, the High Court in London on Thursday denied him permission to appeal against his extradition before the UK Supreme Court.
In its order, the Royal Courts of Justice in London, Lord Justice Jeremy Stuart-Smith and Justice Robert Jay ruled that “the Appellant’s (Nirav) application for permission to appeal to the Supreme Court is refused”.
The judges also ruled that the “certification of a point of law be refused” that would have allowed his plea to progress to the Higher Court.
An appeal on the grounds of a point of law of general public importance is a high threshold that is not met very often. This refusal significantly limits Nirav’s remaining legal options in the UK against his extradition to India.
The latest High Court order also directs Nirav to pay the legal costs related to the latest application, assessed to be $150,247.00.
Last month, Nirav lost an appeal on mental health grounds when the same two-judge High Court bench ruled that his risk of suicide is not such that it would be either unjust or oppressive to extradite him to India to face charges in the estimated USD 2 billion Punjab National Bank (PNB) loan scam case.
Meanwhile, Nirav remains behind bars at Wandsworth Prison in London since his arrest on an extradition warrant in March 2019.
“If they refuse to certify a question and leave to appeal then that is the end of the road,” the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) had earlier elaborated on the appeals process in UK courts.
With Nirav’s application for appeal to the UK Supreme Court being trashed by the London High Court, the diamond merchant can now apply to the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) to try and block his extradition on the basis that he will not receive a fair trial and that he will be detained in conditions that breach Article 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights, to which the UK is a signatory.
The threshold for an ECHR appeal is also extremely high because he would also have to demonstrate that his arguments on those grounds have been previously rejected before the UK courts.
According to UK Home Office sources, it is unknown when extradition may take place as Modi still has legal challenges open to him.
The dismissal of the High Court appeal last month marked a major win for the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) and Enforcement Directorate (ED) case against the businessman.
There are three sets of criminal proceedings against the diamantaire in India - the CBI case of fraud on the PNB which caused losses equivalent to over GBP 700 million, the ED case relating to the alleged laundering of the proceeds of that fraud and a third set of criminal proceedings involving alleged interference with evidence and witnesses in the CBI proceedings.
Then UK Home Secretary, Priti Patel, had ordered Nirav’s extradition based on Judge Sam Goozee’s Westminster Magistrates’ Court ruling in April 2021. The extradition case is now in its final stages of legal appeals.