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The 54-year-old accused in the estimated US$2 billion Punjab National Bank (PNB) loan scam was transferred from HMP Thameside in south London to HMP Pentonville in October to facilitate his court appearance in an unrelated loan case.
At a pre-trial review hearing for an unpaid Bank of India loan of US$8 million, Judge Simon Tinkler was informed that the accused sought an adjournment in the trial scheduled for January 2026 to allow more time to prepare their defense and witness statements.
Justice Tinkler said, “It seems to me that Mr Modi would benefit from access to his previous handwritten notes.”
“It seems to me that we are very close to the point where the absence of papers for Mr Modi will mean that he is not in a position to prepare for the trial in a way that means he can present his case impartially. This is, in particular, in relation to the disclosure documents, including his notes, which took, according to his own evidence, about six weeks or eight weeks to compile.”
Modi’s transfer between the two Category B men’s prisons for relatively low-risk convicts was described as a “logistical convenience” during the online hearing.
In his judgment, Justice Tinkler effectively adjourned the stay application until another review hearing on 19 December. He also issued a court order for HMP Thameside to ensure that all paperwork from the former prison cell was transferred to Modi’s new cell. In contrast to the previous personal hearing in the case in October, when the diamond merchant presented himself as the “plaintiff in person”, barrister James Kinman argued on his behalf to emphasize that his client would suffer “substantial harm” if the trial was not delayed from January 2026.
“This trial would no longer be fair because Mr. Modi faces extremely difficult odds in a small room with a shared desk and no IT facilities,” Kinman said.
Bank of India’s barrister, Tom Beasley, argued against any further adjournment as he pointed to multiple delay tactics by Modi and his pending extradition to India.
“There is now an opportunity to move forward with the case before being detained in India,” Beasley said.
Modi’s barrister confirmed that a hearing to reopen the unrelated extradition case is listed for later this month and said 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, wearing a brown T-shirt, watched the proceedings from a booth at HMP Pentonville prison and spoke only briefly to emphasize his lack of access to his legal documents. Bank of India, represented by RWK Goodman, is pursuing the diamond merchant’s personal guarantee related to the loan to Dubai-incorporated Firestar Diamond FZE.
Meanwhile, Modi remains behind bars in London since his extradition-related arrest in March 2019 and has made several bail attempts that have been rejected on the grounds of his 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 the PNB fraud, the Enforcement Directorate (ED) case relating to 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 Indian courts after a prima facie case was established against him. She has since exhausted her legal avenues to contest the order, most recently when her application to reopen her appeal was accepted in the UK and is due to be heard later this month.