Long wait for extradition

The UK High Court has denied permission to fugitive diamond merchant Nirav Modi to appeal to Britain’s Supreme Court against his extradition to India. The development comes a month after an appeal by Nirav, filed on the grounds of mental health, was rejected by the High Court, which ruled that his ‘risk of suicide is not such that it would be unjust or oppressive to extradite him to India to face charges’. However, the twin setbacks to Nirav, accused of fraud and money laundering in the Rs 13,500-crore Punjab National Bank loan scam case, do not imply that he will be back in India anytime soon. He still has the option of approaching the European Court of Human Rights; Nirav can argue that he will not receive a fair trial and will be detained in violation of the European Convention on Human Rights, to which the UK is a signatory.

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Fugitive economic offenders such as Nirav, liquor baron Vijay Mallya and arms dealer Sanjay Bhandari have been eluding Indian law enforcement agencies for the past several years, having found a safe haven in the UK by investing millions of pounds in that country to acquire British residency. They have been playing the ‘victim’ card to ward off extradition, arguing that they fear ill-treatment or a threat to their life in Indian prisons. Seeing through this stratagem, the UK High Court had said in October that since India was a ‘friendly foreign power’, the UK should honour its extradition treaty obligations and avoid picking holes in the Indian Government’s assurances that Nirav would be provided with adequate medical assistance in jail while on trial.

There is a dire need to rework the 30-year-old India-UK extradition treaty so as to ensure faster processing of cases and plugging of loopholes that are being exploited by high-profile culprits. The Fugitive Economic Offenders Act, which was enacted by the Indian Government in 2018 after the likes of Nirav and Mallya had fled the country, won’t serve its purpose unless the British authorities try in earnest to make the UK an unwelcome destination for fraudster billionaires.