UK high court refuses to overturn lower court refusal of bail to Nirav Modi

LONDON: The high court on Wednesday rejected fugitive diamantaire Nirav Modi's attempt to overturn the lower court's consistent refusal of his bail applications.
Nirav's counsel moved the high court to overturn the previous three decisions of the Westminster magistrates' court, saying there was a "presumption in favour of bail" in extradition cases.
But handing down judgment, Justice Simler said: "Notwithstanding the presumption of bail, I have concluded there are substantial grounds for believing he would fail to surrender to custody and interfere with or obstruct the course of justice."
Simler had been swayed by allegations, put forward by the Indian government, that Nirav's brother Nehal in the US - who is subject to an Interpol red corner notice and extradition request - ordered the destruction of mobile phones belonging to 12 dummy directors of companies controlled by him and Nirav, and that Sandeep Mistry and Nehal had destroyed a secure server at one of their companies in Dubai in February 2018. Nehal and Nirav also allegedly sent the dummy directors to Cairo in March 2018, a month after their business collapsed.
Simler said: "All 12 of them make similar statements, (that) they were threatened or kept in fear in Cairo by Nirav and Nehal. In March 2018 Nehal met them in Dubai and took their phones off them, and told them Dubai was not safe and took them to Cairo, and they were not permitted to leave until they had signed statements and Nehal told them what to say."
The judge added: "Ashish Laid was offered £22,500 to go to Europe to make a statement to Nirav's lawyers. They returned to India in July 2018 and made statements adverse to Nirav but that does not undermine the fact there is compelling evidence that Nirav and those acting on his behalf have sought to interfere with witnesses and destroy evidence. I cannot conclude there is no realistic scope of it happening again."
Clare Montgomery QC, representing Nirav, argued Nehal had "provided assistance to them" to stay in Cairo and return to India in "such a way that they would not be arrested at the airport and instead would be able to surrender voluntarily to the authorities". She said Nehal took their passports to "renew their permits" in Egypt and their phones were destroyed to "avoid tracking".
But Simler said: "The inference is that the phones contained data of interest to the Indian authorities." Simler added that Nirav's "increased bail surety offer to £2 million (Rs 17 crore) cash" was evidence he has the means to abscond even if his bank accounts are frozen.
On Tuesday the judge was given confidential documents which stated Nirav was having a "personally difficult time" in prison.
"The possibility of returning to India is affecting him significantly so it is difficult to predict how he will react to developments in this case which will have the likely consequence of extradition and conviction, which provides a strong incentive for him to fail to surrender," Simler said, adding his lack of ties to the UK was another incentive to flee.
Nirav, accused of defrauding Punjab National Bank of between $1 billion and $2 billion (Rs 7,000 crore and Rs 14,000 crore), cannot appeal the high court decision. He will appear via video link from prison at Westminster magistrates' court on June 27.