London, Dec 16 (PTI) Fugitive diamond merchant Nirav Modi's application seeking permission to reopen his extradition appeal in the UK High Court was on Tuesday adjourned to March, after the Indian authorities submitted "chunky assurances" regarding his pre-trial detention in Mumbai.

Lord Jeremy Stuart-Smith and Justice Robert Jay, presiding over the hearing at the Royal Courts of Justice in London, began by referencing a "sense of deja vu" over the previously failed appeal by the 54-year-old businessman against being extradited to face charges of fraud and money laundering in India.

It also emerged in court that a “confidential process” related to a legal bar to the extradition, believed to be an unconfirmed asylum application heard separately, has presumably concluded in failure in August.

The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS), representing the Indian government in court over the estimated USD 2 billion Punjab National Bank (PNB) loan scam case, argued that the application to reopen the extradition appeal emerged as "necessary and urgent” days after that “confidential procedure” was apparently final.

“We are not much happier than you,” said Lord Justice Stuart-Smith, setting out a firm timetable of mid-February 2026 for submissions ahead of the next appeal hearing.

CPS barrister Helen Malcolm KC pointed to four officials in court – two representing the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) and two from the Enforcement Directorate (ED) – who had travelled from India for this week’s hearing.

“We appreciate this (delay) is profoundly depressing and upsetting,” the judge noted.

Modi, who appeared via videolink from Pentonville prison in north London, could be seen making notes as the two-judge bench concluded that the case will now proceed to a "rolled up hearing” to determine whether permission to reopen the appeal can be granted.

If it is denied during the two-day hearing expected in March-April 2026, the decks are expected to be cleared right away for Modi’s extradition to be held at Arthur Road Jail in Mumbai ahead of his trial in India.

According to court documents, his latest appeal relies heavily on the extradition case of Sanjay Bhandari – the defence sector consultant accused of tax evasion and money laundering, who was discharged from extradition bail on human rights grounds earlier this year.

The CPS has contested the reopening of the appeal on the grounds that it had not been made “as soon as practicable” under the relevant law and dismissed the applicability of the Bhandari case, given the “sovereign assurances” already in place in the Modi case.

It has also been claimed that the application had been brought on a “false basis” as none of the Indian agencies referenced would be interrogating the diamantaire.

“A further sovereign assurance to that effect is provided by the GOI [government of India],” the court was told.

However, Modi’s lawyers, led by barrister Edward Fitzgerald KC, argued that the government of India’s latest set of assurances were “not adequate or reliable to meet the real risk of torture or inhuman treatment” by Indian officials.

“The assurance from the CBI and ED that Mr Modi will not be interrogated by those bodies relies on the word of the very bodies that were found in Bhandari... to be involved in the 'common place and endemic practice of proscribed treatment to obtain confessions’," read their court submissions note.

They sought more time for their Indian law experts, including a retired judge, to respond to the "substantial" government assurances received last week.

The Indian side, meanwhile, highlighted the “considerable history” of the matter, with the case already having gone through the UK courts for “just under six years” since Nirav Modi’s arrest in March 2019.

There are three sets of criminal proceedings against him in India – the CBI case of PNB fraud, the 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 had ordered his extradition to face these charges in the Indian courts after a prima facie case was established against him. Since then, Modi went on to submit several unsuccessful bail applications as well as appeals in the UK courts. PTI AK ZH ZH