UK court docket to ship judgement on Nirav Modi extradition on Feb 25

The judgement within the Nirav Modi extradition case will likely be delivered within the Westminster Magistrates Court on February 25, decide Samuel Goozee introduced on Friday on the finish of a two-day listening to after defence groups made concluding arguments.Claire Montomery, Modi’s lawyer, and Helen Malcolm of the Crown Prosecution Service representing India, quoted from emails, witness statements, financial institution and different paperwork, and offered their variations on points resembling jail situations, psychological well being therapy amenities and the potential for a Modi receiving a good trial, if extradited.Under the UK-India extradition treaty, India wants to determine in UK courts that there’s a prima facie case in opposition to the particular person requested – not a conviction – based mostly on fees that may quantity to offences in regulation in each international locations.One of Montgomery’s main objections to the extradition is the alleged lack of a prima facie case in opposition to Modi, which was countered by Malcolm, who argued that the fees in opposition to Modi would quantity to comparable legal fees underneath British regulation.“There is multiplicity of evidence”, Malcolm advised the court docket, that Modi indulged in fraud in relation to in search of loans from the Punjab National Bank in Mumbai. The proof is ample to determine a prima facie case in opposition to him, she mentioned.Malcolm additionally reiterated India’s fees that Modi interfered with witnesses, was concerned in destroying servers and cellphones, and in addition threatened to kill one of many witnesses. It just isn’t for the court docket to “start double-guessing” what quantities to against the law in India, she added.Besides the alleged lack of a prima facie case, Modi’s defence group has argued that he wouldn’t obtain a good trial in India, wouldn’t obtain acceptable therapy for psychological illnesses and that there was a danger of suicide. There was no proof on India’s cost that Modi and others conspired to defraud the financial institution, the group argued.Modi, 49, who’s lodged within the Wandsworth jail in west London and attended the listening to remotely, carrying a jacket and sporting a beard, is the topic of two extradition requests; one processed by the Central Bureau of Investigation and the opposite by the Enforcement Directorate.Charges in opposition to Modi contain PNB’s Mumbai department that prolonged his corporations loans value over Rs 11,300 crores. The CBI case pertains to large-scale fraud upon PNB, by the fraudulent acquiring of Letters of Understanding (LOUs/mortgage agreements); the ED case pertains to the laundering of the proceeds of that fraud.The second extradition request was made on the premise of two extra offences as a part of the CBI case, regarding allegations that Modi interfered with the CBI investigation by “causing disappearance of evidence” and intimidating witnesses (”legal intimidation to trigger dying”).