Coinciding with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s arrival here on Thursday, the New York-based “Sikhs for Justice” (SFJ) has secured a US court summons against him for alleged human rights violations relating to counter-insurgency operations in Punjab in the 1990s.
In its complaint, the SFJ has alleged that Singh, as Finance Minister in the 1990s, had approved “cash rewards” to members of security forces who allegedly killed Sikhs through extrajudicial means in Punjab during the operations against militancy.
The summons has been issued by a District of Columbia court, acting on SFJ’s complaint. “The rights violation case SFJ v. Manmohan Singh, has been docketed under 13-cv-01460 and assigned to US District Judge, James E Boasberg,” the group announced in a news release, adding: “The Plaintiffs have 120 days to serve the summons and complaint on the PM”.
The moot point, however, is how the SFJ proposes to serve the summons which it is obliged to do on its own under the US practice, given the tight security surrounding the Prime Minister during his visit to Washington and New York.
The SFJ, which has been waging a legal battle in US courts over the 1984 Sikh killings in India, had earlier this month obtained similar summons against Congress President Sonia Gandhi for allegedly shielding Congress functionaries accused of involvement in the riots.
The SFJ is organising a rally outside the White House on Friday, coinciding with the Prime Minister’s meeting with President Obama.
According to the SFJ announcement, the human rights violation law suit against the Prime Minister has been filed under the Alien Tort Claims Act (ATCA) and the Torture Victim Protection Act (TVPA) for “funding several counter insurgency operations in Punjab resulting in more than hundred thousand Sikhs being killed extra judicially by Indian security forces”.
It said the plaintiffs in the class action human rights violation lawsuit are seeking “compensatory and punitive damages for the torture and extra judicial killings at the hands of the Indian security forces”, asserting that “US federal courts have jurisdiction over cases of human rights violations even though violations have occurred on foreign soil as in this case”.
Indian-American Attorney Ravi Batra, who has represented the Congress Party in similar cases filed by SFJ, termed it a “publicity gimmick”. “American courts have tools to handle an out-of-control litigant, whose main goal is to use the court’s ministerial act of accepting a complaint, with the USD 350 filing fee paid and then automatically issuing a summons, to falsely imply in pre-made press releases that a Court had acted on some merits - when it did no such thing,” PTI quoted Batra as saying in New York.
In addition to the court summons, the SFJ is organizing a rally outside the White House on Friday, coinciding with the Prime Minister’s meeting with President Obama.