Nirav Modi Prison Move Complicates Bank of India Trial

London, Dec 5 (PTI) Fugitive diamond merchant Nirav Modi, wanted in India to face fraud and money laundering charges, is forced to share a small prison cell with a shared desk with other inmates without access to most of his legal paperwork, the High Court in London was told on Friday.

The 54-year-old accused in the estimated USD 2 billion Punjab National Bank (PNB) loan scam was shifted from HMP Thameside in south London to HMP Pentonville in October to facilitate a court appearance in an unrelated debt case.

At a pre-trial review hearing for the USD 8-million unpaid Bank of India debt, Judge Simon Tinkler was informed that the accused sought an adjournment to the trial scheduled in January 2026 to allow more time for him to prepare his defence and witness statement.

“It seems to me that Mr Modi would benefit from having access to his previous handwritten notes,” said Justice Tinkler.

“It seems to me that we are very close to the point at which the absence of papers for Mr Modi would mean that he is not in a position to prepare for the trial in a way that means he can fairly present his case. This is, in particular, in relation to the disclosure documents, including his annotations, which, on his own evidence, took some six weeks or eight weeks to compile,” he said.

Modi's shift between the prisons, both Category B men's prisons for relatively low-risk convicts, was described during the online hearing as a “logistic convenience”.

In his judgment, Justice Tinkler effectively adjourned the adjournment application until another review hearing on December 19. He also issued a court order for HMP Thameside to ensure that all the paperwork from the former prison cell is transferred over to Modi's new one.

Unlike at a previous in-person hearing in the case in October, when the diamantaire represented himself as a “Litigant in Person”, barrister James Kinman argued on his behalf to stress that his client would be at a “substantial disadvantage” if the trial was not delayed from January 2026.

“This trial will no longer be fair as Mr Modi is facing extremely difficult constraints in a small room with a shared desk and no IT facilities,” said Kinman.

Bank of India's barrister, Tom Beasley, argued against any further adjournment as he pointed to several delaying tactics by Modi and also to his pending extradition to India.

“There is an opportunity to go ahead with the trial now before he is held in custody in India,” said Beasley.

Modi's barrister went on to confirm that a hearing to reopen the unrelated extradition case is listed for later this month and stated that there was a “real possibility” that his client would either not be extradited at all or at least not before “very late in 2026”.

Modi, dressed in a grey t-shirt, observed the proceedings from a booth in HMP Pentonville prison and spoke only briefly to assert the lack of access to his legal documents. Bank of India, represented by RWK Goodman, are pursuing the diamantaire's personal guarantee related to a loan to Dubai-incorporated Firestar Diamond FZE.

Meanwhile, Modi has been behind bars in London since his extradition-related arrest in March 2019 and has made several bail attempts, which have all been rejected on the grounds of him posing a flight risk – most recently in May this year.

There are three sets of criminal proceedings against him in India – the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) case of PNB fraud, the Enforcement Directorate (ED) case relating to the alleged laundering of the proceeds of that fraud and a third set of criminal proceedings involving alleged interference with evidence and witnesses in the CBI proceedings.

In April 2021, then UK home secretary Priti Patel ordered his extradition to face these charges in the Indian courts after a prima facie case was established against him. He had since exhausted his legal avenues to contest the order, until recently, when his application to reopen his appeal was accepted in the UK and is set to be heard later this month.