UK Court orders for extradition of diamond merchant Nirav Modi in fraud and money laundering case
UK Court orders for extradition of diamond merchant Nirav Modi in fraud and money laundering case
In a new twist, the High Court in London on Wednesday ordered for the extradition to India of diamond merchant Nirav Modi to face charges of fraud and money laundering, amounting to an estimated $2 billion in the Punjab National Bank (PNB) loan scam case.
The verdict was delivered by Lord Justice Jeremy Stuart-Smith and Justice Robert Jay, who presided over the appeal hearing earlier this year delivered the verdict.
The 51-year-old businessman remains behind bars at Wandsworth prison in south-east London
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 “unjust or oppressive” to extradite Nirav Modi due to his mental state and Section 91 of the Extradition Act 2003, also related to mental ill health.
Nirav Modi is the subject of two sets of criminal proceedings, with the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) case relating to a large-scale fraud upon PNB through the fraudulent obtaining of letters of undertaking (LoUs) or loan agreements, and the Enforcement Directorate (ED) case relating to the laundering of the proceeds of that fraud.
News Input K.V.Raman
