A UK court has rejected the bail plea of fugitive celebrity jeweller Nirav Modi, who will now spend the next nine days in a jail, till the Westminster Court takes up his case again on March 29. The absconding diamond trader responsible for looting leading state-run bank PNB was arrested by the Scotland Yard from London's Holborn area on Tuesday after a bank clerk spotted him and dialled the police.
Nirav, 48, is likely to be held in a separate cell in Her Majesty's Prison Wandsworth, in south London. His inmates will include the likes of alleged Dawood henchman Pakistani-origin Jabir Moti, currently undergoing extradition proceedings to the US.
The turn of events comes days after he was spotted by British newspaper Telegraph walking the streets of London in a Rs 9 Lakh ostrich-leather jacket. Nirav was presented before the court at 11.30 am London time on Wednesday. His counsel, George Hepburne-Scott, told the court the case was politically motivated and the condition of Indian jails was dismal — arguments rejected by the court.
District Judge Marie Mallon, presiding over the hearing, said that she was not inclined to accept Modi's bail plea due the "high value amount" attached to the allegations against him and that he would have "every incentive" to evade surrendering before the court.
There are substantial grounds to believe that you would fail to surrender before the court if bail were to be granted," the judge noted.
India, which is being represented by Jonathan Swain from the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS), had approached Interpol regarding Modi in July 2018 and a red-corner notice was issued against him. An RCN makes it difficult for the accused to to get bail.
Modi had fled the country in January 2018 when the Punjab National bank PNB first reported the scam. In February, India revoked his passport and last August, New Delhi sent two extradition requests to the UK — one from the CBI, and another from the ED.
Top govt sources told WION that New Delhi has already sent relevant material to the British government concerning his extradition, and it was up to the Westminster Court to decide if the extradition demand was genuine. At a later stage, a CBI representative might go to London, the source said.
Earlier this month, the UK Central Authority of Home Office had sent India's extradition request to the Westminster Magistrate Court District Judge for further proceedings.
Through fraudulent issuance of letters of undertaking and foreign letters of credit for payments of import bills, Modi and his uncle Mehul Choksi duped PNB of Rs 13,000 crore, from February 2011 to May 2017.
While Modi scampered away to the UK, Choksi scurried off to a Caribbean country, Antigua and Barbuda, and acquired its citizenship.
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District Judge Marie Mallon, presiding over the hearing, said that she was not inclined to accept Modi's bail plea due the "high value amount" attached to the allegations against him and that he would have "every incentive" to evade surrendering before the court.
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