The High Court of Justice in London on Wednesday refused to reopen fugitive diamantaire Nirav Modi’s extradition case, in a verdict that appears to exhaust his last legal avenue in the United Kingdom and potentially clearing the path for his return to India after more than seven years in British custody.. The CBI, which has been pursuing Modi’s extradition since 2018, said its investigating officers had travelled to London. (Mint Print). The ruling hinged on assurances from the Indian government — delivered in September 2025, December 2025, and through a note verbale from the Indian High Commission in London in February 2026 — that Modi will not be interrogated by any of the five investigating agencies handling his cases. The assurances proved crucial — Modi had sought to reopen his extradition by citing the case of defence consultant Sanjay Bhandari, whose extradition was blocked by a UK court last year on human rights grounds, arguing that the same risk of torture applied to him.. Without the government’s pledges, the court said, it would have been minded to reopen the appeal.. Also Read | Ex-PNB clerk seeks discharge in ₹13,700-crore Nirav Modi fraud case, hearing on April 13. The bench of Lord Justice Jeremy Stuart-Smith and Justice Robert Jay found the assurances “specific and not general and vague,” given by a ministry of home affairs official competent to bind the government of India, the state of Maharashtra, and all five agencies. The assurances had been given “in good faith and with the intention that they should be binding,” the judges said, adding that they had “not been given with an eye to wriggling out of them.”. But the judgment made clear how close the outcome had been. The court acknowledged that the Bhandari ruling presented a “worrying picture” of the use of proscribed treatment to obtain confessions, which it characterised as “commonplace and endemic.”. The CBI, which has been pursuing Modi’s extradition since 2018, said its investigating officers had travelled to London to assist the Crown Prosecution Service in countering Modi’s application. The agency on Wednesday said the challenge posed by the Bhandari judgment had been “successfully overcome” through “sustained and coordinated efforts.”. Separately on Wednesday, Modi turned up at a London court hearing a plea filed by Bank of India seeking to encash a personal guarantee given by the fugitive tied to a multimillion-dollar lending facility.. India did not contest that the Bhandari findings applied to Modi, resting its case entirely on the quality of the assurances, the order noted as the court accepted this approach. It stated that the bilateral relationship between the UK and India, the high-profile nature of the case, and Modi’s guaranteed daily access to lawyers and a medical team under previous assurances all weighed in India’s favour — even though the new assurances will not be formally monitored. The court also obs
