New Delhi: The High Court in London on Wednesday reserved its judgment in the Nirav Modi extradition appeal at the end of a two-day hearing.
The British said the verdict in the case will be handed down “as soon as possible”, given that the wanted diamond merchant has been in a “state of limbo” as he remains incarcerated in a prison here.
On the second day of the final stage of the High Court appeal hearing, being pursued by 51-year-old Modi against being extradited to face the Indian courts in the estimated USD 2 billion Punjab National Bank loan scam case, a two-judge panel continued to hear arguments that the diamantaire poses a high risk of suicide due to his depressive state.
His defence team claimed that his depression would worsen if sent to the “hostile environment” of India, where politicians have “demonised” him by pre-judging his guilt, the press has been “vitriolic” and the public has “burnt his effigies”.
“The government of India assurances should be read reasonably benignly and one should not pick every possible hole in them,” Lord Justice Jeremy Stuart-Smith told defence barrister Edward Fitzgerald.
“It is in your client’s interests to demonstrate the assurances aren’t good enough, but we should take a benign approach,” he said.
Justice Robert Jay further noted that India is a “friendly foreign power and we have to honour our treaty obligations”, with reference to the India-UK Extradition Treaty signed in 1992.
