Written by Madhav Bahl, a grade 8 student

A recent Netflix show called Bad Boy Billionaires said that the only difference between Nirav Modi and a regular street crook is that he used to throw lavish parties.

Why did they say that? And who is Nirav Modi?

Nirav Modi is a luxury diamond jeweler and designer. His family was in the jewelry business and he owned a chain of stores called The Nirav Modi chain. It had stores in big cities around the world – like Delhi, Mumbai, New York, Hong Kong, London.

He is currently in the United Kingdom seeking political asylum (let’s get a quick understanding of what political asylum is before telling you what he did).

What is extradition?

People ask another country (other than the one in which they live) for political asylum – or the right to live or gain shelter in that country. This happens when they are scared to live in their own country – for any reason – primarily because they believe that they would be persecuted (troubled). The word asylum means: “the protection granted by a state to someone who has left their home country as a political refugee”.

Extradition thus is an action wherein one jurisdiction delivers a person accused or convicted of committing a crime in another jurisdiction, over to the other’s law enforcement. It is a cooperative law enforcement procedure between the two jurisdictions and depends on the arrangements made between them.

In simple words, it means the way by which a fugitive has run from a country will be sent back to the country where he did the crime and then he is tested for the crime. If he loses then he spends his sentence in jail if he doesn’t then he is free. It can happen on a smaller scale in which it happens between states.

This does not always happen in all cases as some countries have extradition treaties whereas some do not. In no extradition countries, fugitives or criminals do not have to return to other places and are convicted where they were caught.

Why will he be extradited?

In February 2018, the Indian government’s CBI launched an investigation on Nirav Modi, acting on a complaint from the Punjab National Bank which said that Nirav and his partners defrauded the bank of Rs. 28000 crores by conspiring with the bank officials and obtaining the Letters of Undertaking from the bank. The bank said this made the bank potentially lose Rs. 11000 crore.

There was a case filed against Nirav Modi and his family who then ran and travelled across various parts of the world while also running from Interpol.

Possible options for Nirav Modi

He has exhausted all his possible options and is only left with one that he can appeal to the high court where he can send his case to the Secretary of State. Then the Secretary of State will decide his extradition.

 What excuse has he been using?

Nirav Modi had said in court that he would not get a fair trial in India. This is just an excuse for him cause if he comes back to India he will face a similar sad Vijay Malaya situation in which he would have had the money to pay back but he didn’t.

Header image source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Nirav_Modi_%281%29.jpg

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