In the first pretrial hearing of the case on Thursday, a UK court has extended the custody of Fugitive jeweller Nirav Modi till 27 June. The judge has also directed Indian authorities to confirm within 14 days, the prison location, where he would be held, if extradited.

The next hearing will be held on 29 July.

Nirva Modi, who is fighting his extradition to India in the nearly $2 billion Punjab National Bank (PNB) fraud and money laundering case, has been lodged at Wandsworth prison in south-west London since his third attempt at seeking bail was rejected by Chief Magistrate Emma Arbuthnot at the last hearing at Westminster Magistrates' Court earlier this month.

He was arrested on 19 March in London while attempting to open a new bank account at a Metro Bank branch.

Arbuthnot, the judge who had ordered the Mallya extradition in December 2018, has been very firm with the CPS, representing the Indian government, about proper indexing of all documents to be submitted to the court in relation to the case.

The government of India's barrister asked for eight weeks time to produce an "opening note" on the case. Arbuthnot, however, insisted that the "note" needed to be "provided in six weeks" and set 29 July as the date for the next hearing. A Times Network report said that this could delay Modi's extradition trial to February 2020.