A UK High Court judge on Wednesday accepted a broad consistency of evidence put forward by the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS), arguing on behalf of the Indian Government, in the extradition case against fugitive diamond merchant Nirav Modi.

 

 

Justice Ingrid Simler read out a detailed judgement at the Royal Courts of Justice, in which she upheld a lower court ruling to withhold bail and also summed up the case against Modi - wanted in India as the “principal beneficiary” of the fraudulent issuance of letters of undertaking (LoUs) in the nearly USD 2 billion Punjab National Bank (PNB) fraud and money laundering case.

 

 

“Taken overall, there is a broad consistency of evidence,” Judge Simler noted, as she accepted all the concerns raised by the CPS. Modi’s legal team had rejected any of destruction of evidence by him and claimed that any mobile phones disposed of were only to avoid tracking rather than to destroy the material held on them. But the judge dismissed this assertion, accepting the CPS assertion that they were destroyed to obstruct the CBI and ED investigation. “There is a compelling case that this was done to prevent the investigating agencies from obtaining relevant data,” the judge agreed.