55 bird death complaints received by BMC in Mumbai

Danish Khan in London Westminster Magistrate’s Court in London will deliver a ruling on February 25 on whether Nirav Modi can be sent back to India or not. Nirav Modi’s extradition case sprang from a straightforward case of fraud. Unlike Mallya, there is no scope for convergence of business failure with bad debts for Nirav Modi. And unlike Mallya, Modi has been in jail since his arrest, having failed to secure bail despite numerous attempts. Judges have termed him a flight risk with access to vast funds and the possibility of influencing witnesses. Yet, the petite diamond trader has woven a script of a fragile mind and fears of persecution if sent back to India. But can these arguments restore his freedom? On March 19, 2019, a harmless chore of attempting to open a bank account in central London precipitated Nirav Modi’s arrest. India had moved a request to extradite him and an employee of Metro Bank’s branch in central London, instead of engaging with Modi on the formalities of opening an account, alerted the Scotland Yard. The visit to the bank frustrated Modi’s legal team’s effort to have him arrested by appointment a few days later by specialist officers of the Scotland Yard’s extradition unit. Almost two years after that arrest, Westminster Magistrate’s Court will deliver a ruling on February 25 on whether Nirav Modi should be sent to India or not. Solicitors representing individuals subject to extradition requests come to an arrangement, on a case-by-case basis, with the short-staffed extradition unit on a date on which the arrest is to be carried out. But on March 19, 2019, the clerk at Metro Bank did what senior managers at the Punjab National Bank had failed to do for years, allowing Modi to defraud the bank to the tune of $ 1.5 billion. Since his arrest, and due to the pressing of additional charges of threatening witnesses and destruction of evidence to the primary allegations of fraud and money laundering, Modi has remained in prison despite six attempts to secure bail. As the judicial process concluded after running the usual course of case management hearings, serving and exchange of evidence, substantive arguments, Judge Samuel Goozee on Friday, the last of the two-day session of final oral submissions, announced that he will deliver a judgment in the open court on February 25. Lockdown restrictions meant that Modi attended the proceedings through a video-link from the Wandsworth prison, dressed in white shirt and black suit, a far cry from his usual high-fashion attire (remember his ostrich jacket). The bashful diamantaire, who once glowed in photo-ops with international models, is now under the shadow of disturbing mental health bad enough, according to his legal team, to meet the threshold of being discharged. In the course of the hearing, there were quite a few references to the ruling in the Wikileaks founder Julian Assange’s case decided by Goozee’s fellow Judge Vanessa Baraitser. Baraitser’s ruling had turned out to be an anti-climax as she began by upholding one-by-one the arguments put forward by the USA against Assange only to conclude that the extradition would be oppressive as there was a likelihood of him dying by suicide in the prison. Article 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) and Section 91 of the (UK) Extradition Act 2003 provide the necessary safeguards to bar extradition on the basis of preventing torture or inhuman treatment and poor physical and mental condition rendering extradition unjust and oppressive. Clare Montgomery, Modi’s barrister, has cited both. Helen Malcolm, the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) barrister, representing India, told the court that Modi has been fit to plead and take part in the proceedings so far and that private medical care can be provided to him at Arthur Road jail in Mumbai. “It must be a matter of logic that the (lockdown) regime has been difficult,” acknowledged Malcolm, but pointed out that the staff at Wandsworth prison has not found it necessary to refer Modi to a hospital. A further complexity was added by Montgomery saying that India had failed to provide clear and sufficient assurance on medical provisions in jail, thus necessitating Modi’s discharge. Two previous extradition cases, which were also cited during the closing submissions, provide templates to possible reasons based on which Modi’s extradition could or could not happen. In the case of Raymond Varley, a British national, pursued by India on charges of child sexual abuse in Goa, the Westminster magistrates’ court ordered his discharge after a witness provided evidence regarding his mental health, which went unchallenged by India. In short, India did not offer an expert to counter the onset of dementia argument forwarded by Varley. This was despite visits by two experts concluding that the prisons in Goa would not violate his human rights and the trial court too concluding that Varley had a prima facie case to answer. Judge Goozee declined India’s request to allow an independent expert to assess Modi’s mental health, agreeing with Montgomery that it should have been made earlier. What this means is just like the Varley case, India only cross-examined the defence witness – Dr Andrew Forrester – who laid out the troubling state of Modi’s mental health, but offered no independent expert of its own. India also has no access to Modi’s medical records. The other case, that would offer some solace to India, is that of alleged cricket bookie Sanjeev Chawla who was extradited to India in 2020. Chawla was initially discharged by the Westminster Magistrate’s Court on the grounds that the conditions in Tihar jail posed a real risk of treatment contrary to Article 3 of ECHR, which was not mitigated by the assurance provided by India. Eventually, the high court accepted a further assurance from India as sufficient enough to show that “there will be no real risk that Mr Chawla will be subjected to impermissible treatment in Tihar prisons. The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) barrister, representing India (who incidentally was also Chawla’s counsel) told the court on Thursday that India should be given the opportunity to provide further assurance to assuage any concerns raised by Modi. It is easy to have the charges forming the basis for extradition requests to be put on the back burner. The safety valves of human rights, right to fair trial, and prison conditions offer a route to resist extradition even if the requesting state manages to pass the prima facie test of convincing the court that the requested person has a case to answer. In the case of Nirav Modi, which can be termed a (comparatively) straight forward case of fraud, the defence marshalled several high-profile witnesses, including Justice Markandey Katju and Justice Abhay Thipsay. Modi has not denied that the Letters of Undertaking were not issued by the Punjab National Bank (PNB). He asserts that they were issued following set guidelines and because it made good business sense. According to Montgomery, the lending was authorised by general managers in accordance with rules governing them. Some hair-splitting arguments happened with respect to Justice Thipsay’s evidence on the definition of cheating in India. The ruling is likely to have observations on the evidence presented and it would be interesting to see how the court assesses the witnesses. Will the judge see merit in the defence’s assertions that a section of the judiciary in India has been compromised or will it see force in the prosecution’s argument that India continues to have a tradition for judicial independence? Or perhaps, the judge won’t need to make any such observations. In seeking to allay fears that Modi will not be in solitary confinement, Malcolm stated that once Mallya is extradited he too will be in Barrack 12. But Mallya is still in London, despite his judicial defeat, by virtue of a confidential application which could change the outcome. The path to Barrack 12 for Modi, too, could also be a long way away. Danish Khan is a London-based journalist and is co-author of a forthcoming book on extradition

Search This Blog

covid 19

55 bird death complaints received by BMC in Mumbai

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Today Top Share Stock Price

GAIL to consider share buyback, dividend on January 15