The UK Govt’s nod to Nirav Modi’s extradition is happy news, but don’t just pop the bubbly yet
In what is being considered a major victory for India’s External Affairs Ministry and the legal team, the UK Government has finally cleared the extradition of scam accused billionaire Nirav Modi. The UK Home Secretary, Priti Patel, signed the order on April 15 after the Westminster court allowed the extradition plea in February and sent the decision to Patel for ratification. Giving the Indian Government and the Central agencies great cause to celebrate, the UK Magistrate found Modi guilty on all charges levelled by the Central Bureau of Investigation and the Enforcement Directorate, who have been investigating the Rs 14,000 crore scam involving the Punjab National Bank. This latest move by the UK Government comes on the heels of another bad boy billionaire Vijay Mallya’s extradition to India being given the green light by a UK court last year. The maverick tycoon is on bail in the UK and is facing charges of cheating and defrauding Indian banks involving his now-defunct Kingfisher Airlines.
However, the mandarins need not pat themselves on the back too soon: Modi still has two chances to appeal to the UK’s higher courts and to apply for political asylum. In all likelihood, he will do that as he has been opposing his extradition every inch of the way. He might take a page out of Mallya’s book and use his battery of lawyers to ensure that he stays out of the clutches of the Indian law enforcement agencies as long as possible. Because despite the UK court’s order last year, Mallya is as far from coming back home as the current pandemic is from leaving it. The liquor baron’s latest move has been applying for “another route” before Patel in a last-ditch effort to delay his extradition. It is a crying shame that India has a poor record of bringing its major economic offenders to book once they flee the country. India has a long list of such white collar criminals who have defrauded our banks of the taxpayers’ hard-earned money and are now leading lavish lives abroad. But the list of such crooks that it has been able to bring back to face punishment is woefully short. It is a travesty of justice when a poor man who stole something out of a desperate need for survival has to languish in overcrowded and filthy jails for years as an undertrial while major scamsters who emptied our careless banks of billions continue to dally with the law.
