E-Paper
UK court rejects Nirav Modi's plea to reopen extradition case; clears way for fugitive diamantaire's India return
The verdict may have exhausted the fugitive diamantaire's last legal avenue in the United Kingdom.
Prefer HTon Google
The High Court of Justice in London on Wednesday refused to reopen fugitive diamantaire Nirav Modi’s extradition case, in a verdict that appears to exhaust his last legal avenue in the United Kingdom and potentially clearing the path for his return to India after more than seven years in British custody.
The ruling hinged on assurances from the Indian government — delivered in September 2025, December 2025, and through a note verbale from the Indian High Commission in London in February 2026 — that Modi will not be interrogated by any of the five investigating agencies handling his cases. The assurances proved crucial — Modi had sought to reopen his extradition by citing the case of defence consultant Sanjay Bhandari, whose extradition was blocked by a UK court last year on human rights grounds, arguing that the same risk of torture applied to him.
Without the government’s pledges, the court said, it would have been minded to reopen the appeal.
Also Read | Ex-PNB clerk seeks discharge in ₹13,700-crore Nirav Modi fraud case, hearing on April 13
The bench of Lord Justice Jeremy Stuart-Smith and Justice Robert Jay found the assurances “specific and not general and vague,” given by a ministry of home affairs official competent to bind the government of India, the state of Maharashtra, and all five agencies. The assurances had been given “in good faith and with the intention that they should be binding,” the judges said, adding that they had “not been given with an eye to wriggling out of them.”
But the judgment made clear how close the outcome had been. The court acknowledged that the Bhandari ruling presented a “worrying picture” of the use of proscribed treatment to obtain confessions, which it characterised as “commonplace and endemic.”
The CBI, which has been pursuing Modi’s extradition since 2018, said its investigating officers had travelled to London to assist the Crown Prosecution Service in countering Modi’s application. The agency on Wednesday said the challenge posed by the Bhandari judgment had been “successfully overcome” through “sustained and coordinated efforts.”
Separately on Wednesday, Modi turned up at a London court hearing a plea filed by Bank of India seeking to encash a personal guarantee given by the fugitive tied to a multimillion-dollar lending facility.
India did not contest that the Bhandari findings applied to Modi, resting its case entirely on the quality of the assurances, the order noted as the court accepted this approach. It stated that the bilateral relationship between the UK and India, the high-profile nature of the case, and Modi’s guaranteed daily access to lawyers and a medical team under previous assurances all weighed in India’s favour — even though the new assurances will not be formally monitored. The court also observed that while India is not a signatory to the UN Convention Against Torture, it was satisfied that torture is not permitted under Indian law.
In Bhandari’s case, India’s attempt to appeal to the Supreme Court was refused in April 2025, making Bhandari — accused of being a middleman in defence deals under CBI investigation for corruption— a free man in London.
Modi’s legal team presented testimony from Indian lawyer Ashul Aggarwal and former Supreme Court judge Justice Deepak Verma to argue he would face the risk of being questioned by agencies. The court gave no weight to their evidence.
HT reported first, on September 19, that Modi’s plea to reopen the matter had been admitted by the court.
The same bench had dismissed Modi’s appeal against extradition in November 2022, and subsequently refused him permission to approach the UK Supreme Court.
Accused of defrauding Punjab National Bank of ₹6,498 crore — part of a total ₹13,578 crore fraud, with around ₹7,000 crore linked to his uncle Mehul Choksi — Modi has been in a UK prison since his arrest by Scotland Yard on March 19, 2019, on the basis of India’s extradition request. A district judge at Westminster Magistrates’ Court ordered his extradition on February 25, 2021.
India has informed UK authorities that Modi will be housed at Arthur Road prison in Mumbai. The court said it did not need to resolve the question of whether video-conferencing facilities at the prison are adequate for him to attend his trial remotely.
Modi was declared a fugitive economic offender under the Fugitive Economic Offenders Act, 2018. The Enforcement Directorate has attached assets worth ₹2,598 crore under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act, and ₹981 crore has been restored to the victim banks
