Nirav Modi’s Last Legal Door Slams Shut: UK High Court Rejects Reopening Plea, Paves Way for Extradition

 

Mr Nirav Deepak Modi is wanted by the Government of India (GoI) on three linked sets of criminal proceedings. The primary extradition request (made on July 27, 2018) concerns (i) CBI proceedings alleging a massive fraud on Punjab National Bank (losses exceeding £700 million / Rs 13,800 crore) and (ii) Enforcement Directorate proceedings alleging money-laundering of the proceeds. The second request (made on February 11, 2020) concerns alleged interference with evidence and witnesses in the CBI case. Mr Modi was arrested in the UK on 19 March 2019 and has remained in custody at HMP Wandsworth since 20 March 2019.

After a contested extradition hearing before District Judge Goozée in 2020–2021, the District Judge found no bars to extradition and sent the case to the Secretary of State, who ordered extradition on 15 April 2021. Mr Modi appealed to the Divisional Court on two grounds: (1) Article 3 ECHR (real risk of torture or inhuman/degrading treatment) and (2) section 91 of the Extradition Act 2003 (oppression by reason of his physical/mental condition).

In Modi v Government of India [2022] EWHC 2829 (Admin) (9 November 2022) the Divisional Court (same constitution) dismissed the appeal after considering four earlier GoI assurances that Mr Modi would be detained in Barrack No. 12, Arthur Road Jail, Mumbai, and would have access to private medical/mental-health care.

Permission to appeal to the Supreme Court was refused. A subsequent confidential legal bar prevented extradition until 13 August 2025. On 18 August 2025 Mr Modi issued an Application Notice under CrimPR 50.27 (and Crim PD 12.5.15) seeking to reopen his 2022 appeal. The application was triggered by this Court’s decision in Bhandari v Government of India [2025] EWHC 449 (Admin) (28 February 2025), which the applicant contended demonstrated that torture and ill-treatment by Indian investigative agencies (CBI, ED and others) is “commonplace and endemic”. Mr Modi argued that, if extradited, he would face prolonged interrogation by multiple agencies and a real Article 3 risk that could not be cured by the earlier assurances.

GoI responded with a series of further written assurances and a Note Verbale between September 2025 and February 2026. These assurances addressed (inter alia) the precise conditions of detention, non-interrogation by non-judicial authorities, independent monitoring, and access to lawyers and medical care. The Divisional Court case-managed the application intensively, requiring an “Issues Schedule”, granting Mr Modi permission to adduce additional expert and factual evidence (witness statements of Mr Ashul Agarwal (4th and 5th) and Mr Ritesh Shah), and adjourning the December 2025 hearing to allow full response to the latest assurances. The matter came before the Court on 17 March 2026 as a “rolled-up” hearing: permission to reopen and, if granted, the substantive reopened appeal.

Issues

The Court had to determine two linked questions:

1. Procedural – permission to reopen Under CrimPR 50.27(3), the applicant must show that reopening is (i) necessary to avoid a real injustice, (ii) that the circumstances are exceptional and make reopening appropriate, and (iii) that there is no alternative effective remedy. The Court applied the principles in McIntyre v United States [2014] EWHC 1886 (Admin) (emphasising finality in extradition) and United States v Bowen [2015] EWHC 1873 (Admin).
2. Substantive – Article 3 ECHR (and, residually, s 91) Whether, in light of Bhandari and the new material, there is now a real risk of Article 3 ill-treatment (torture or inhuman/degrading treatment) during any period of interrogation or custody by Indian investigative authorities, and whether GoI’s 2025–2026 assurances are sufficient in nature, quality and reliability to dispel that risk to below the Article 3 threshold (applying the Othman v United Kingdom (2012) 55 EHRR 1 criteria for assessing diplomatic assurances).

The Court also considered whether any residual oppression under s 91 (mental/physical condition) warranted reopening, though this was secondary.

Decision

The Divisional Court unanimously refused permission to reopen the 2022 appeal. Because permission was refused, the substantive reopened appeal was not entertained. The Court held that GoI’s latest assurances (September 2025–February 2026, culminating in the Note Verbale) were comprehensive, specific, credible and enforceable. They eliminated any real Article 3 risk that Mr Modi would be subjected to interrogation by investigative agencies or to torture/ill-treatment. Consequently, no real injustice would be caused by refusing to reopen, the circumstances were not exceptional, and finality in extradition proceedings prevailed. Extradition could therefore proceed.

The Court ordered that the application be dismissed and made consequential directions for costs and any further steps.

Analysis of the Decision

The judgment is a textbook illustration of the high threshold for reopening a concluded extradition appeal and of the rigorous, structured approach UK courts now take to foreign diplomatic assurances in Article 3 cases.

1. Strict application of the reopening test The Court began by reiterating the “exceptional” nature of CrimPR 50.27 jurisdiction and the public interest in finality (McIntyre §11). Even though Bhandari post-dated the 2022 judgment and contained strong findings about systemic ill-treatment risks by Indian investigative agencies, the Court emphasised that Bhandari itself turned on the absence (or inadequacy) of specific assurances in that case. The mere existence of a general risk identified in Bhandari did not automatically constitute “exceptional circumstances” once tailored, credible assurances had been given to this requested person. The Court found that Mr Modi’s application, while properly brought once the confidential bar lifted, ultimately failed the necessity and exceptionality limbs once the new assurances were evaluated.

2. Detailed Othman assessment of the assurances The Court conducted a paragraph-by-paragraph analysis of GoI assurances against the ten Othman factors. It found them to score favourably on almost every count:

• Specificity and detail: The assurances identified exact detention locations, named the agencies that would not have custody or interrogation rights, prescribed strict judicial oversight for any questioning, and guaranteed independent monitoring by named Indian human-rights bodies and foreign diplomatic observers.
• Good faith and binding nature: The assurances were given at Ministerial level, recorded in a formal Note Verbale, and expressly stated to be binding on all relevant Indian authorities. The Court accepted GoI’s long track-record of compliance with similar undertakings in other extradition cases.
• Verification and enforcement mechanisms: Detailed provisions for lawyer access, medical examination, video-recording of any interviews, and swift reporting of any complaint to the Indian courts and to the UK High Commission were all present.
• Absence of contrary evidence: While Mr Modi adduced expert evidence seeking to undermine the assurances (including updated reports on Indian prison conditions), the Court found that evidence generalised and did not engage with the specific protective regime now offered. No “substantial grounds” for believing the assurances would be broken were shown.

The Court expressly distinguished the position from Bhandari, where no equivalent package of assurances had been offered.

3. Broader principles The judgment reinforces that diplomatic assurances remain a legitimate and effective tool for removing Article 3 risk in extradition to countries where general conditions may fall short of ECHR standards, provided the assurances are “specific, tailored, credible and capable of being monitored”. It also underlines the Divisional Court’s pragmatic, evidence-led approach: once GoI had cured the deficiencies identified in earlier litigation by iterative improvements to the assurances, the Court was prepared to accept them without requiring further delay.

4. Practical outcome By refusing reopening, the Court has cleared the final domestic legal obstacle to Mr Modi’s extradition (subject only to any further Supreme Court application, which the judgment strongly suggests would be hopeless). The decision is likely to be cited in future cases involving India as demonstrating that, with sufficiently detailed and monitored assurances, the Article 3 threshold can be met despite the systemic concerns highlighted in Bhandari.

In short, the Court balanced the applicant’s human-rights arguments against the strong public interest in finality and the reliability of GoI’s enhanced undertakings, concluding that extradition could lawfully proceed. The reasoning is clear, tightly structured and consistent with the Court’s established extradition jurisprudence.

Citation for the decision: Modi v Government of India [2026] EWHC 716 (Admin)

Links to access the decision:

HTML: https://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWHC/Admin/2026/716.html

PDF: https://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWHC/Admin/2026/716.pdf