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The London High Court relied on the “quality of assurances” given by the Government of India in its note verbale while rejecting fugitive diamantaire Nirav Modi’s petition to reopen his case against extradition, officials said.
Modi, who is wanted in India in connection with a Rs 13,000-crore Punjab National Bank fraud, had approached the London court to reopen his case on the basis of the judgment in fugitive economic offender Sanjay Bhandari’s case, where extradition was dropped on the possibility of torture by Indian agencies.
The London High Court had discharged Bhandari from the extradition order on human rights grounds. “Refusing” the permission to reopen Modi’s case, the Bench Lord Justice Stuart Smith and Justice Jay in the High Court of Justice, King’s Bench Division, said they relied on “the quality of assurances” given by the Indian government in its note verbale.
“When Mr Modi’s case came before us in the autumn of 2022, the material underpinning the decision in Bhandari was either not available or was not drawn to our attention. This court’s judgment in the Bhandari case presents a worrying picture of the use of proscribed treatment to obtain confessions, which was characterised as commonplace and endemic,” the UK court said in its judgment.
