Eyes now on cases against Sonia Gandhi, Manmohan Singh.
By Sujeet Rajan
NEW YORK: The Congress Party may be headed for losses in the Lok Sabha elections in India, but it can celebrate a victory in the courts of New York City. A Federal judge on Monday dismissed a lawsuit against the party brought by an advocacy group, Sikhs for Justice (SFJ), alleging the party’s culpability for damages in the 1984 riots in India which targeted Sikhs around the country, following the assassination of Prime Minister Indira Gandhi.
Federal Judge Robert W. Sweet granted the Indian National Congress (INC) party’s motion to dismiss the lawsuit, finding that SFJ cannot be a plaintiff and individual plaintiffs are not “legal representatives.” He didn’t allow any further amendments to be made to the lawsuit.
INC’s attorney Ravi Batra hailed the judgment, saying: “Federal Judge Robert W. Sweet’s order and judgment dismissing SFJ’s case against INC must be music to every law abiding citizen in the world who value’s their own nation’s sovereignty.”
Batra added that the United States Supreme Court established the precedent that events occurring entirely on foreign soil by and between foreigners, without touching or concerning the United States, will not be heard in US courts, “unlike the Spanish courts’ extraterritoriality misadventures that continue to date.”
Sweet’s order held that SFJ as an American corporation is not an alien, and the Alien Tort Statute only permits aliens to sue. Other individual plaintiffs – some Sikhs who claimed they were victims of the riots and are now living in the US – are also not permitted to sue as they are not recognized by New York law or by Indian Law to be “legal representatives.”
Batra said the judgment “has put SFJ out of business of filing meritless lawsuits that only seek publicity and have no chance of getting merit-based justice. Just as a man cannot get pregnant, neither can SFJ’s polygamous lawsuits win in court per its faulty recipe.”
Sweet did not opine on any claims by individual Sikhs on their predicament. However, in a footnote, he acknowledges, contrary to SFJ’s assertions, that India has acted to address the hurt caused by the 1984 events.
While the Congress party has been exonerated, trouble still brews for the Prime Minister of India, Dr. Manmohan Singh, and the Congress Party President Sonia Gandhi, who are fighting separate cases also filed by the SFJ, on the issue of the 1984 riots.
Both lawsuits are also filed under the Alien Tort Statute, which allows U.S. citizens to file civil suits in federal courts for violations of international law, and under the Torture Victims Protection Act, which allows civil cases to be brought against any official in a foreign nation.
While a ruling in Gandhi’s case will be coming any day in New York City, in Singh’s case, a Federal judge in Washington, DC, has given time till June 18th for SFJ to serve summons, even through email or social media.
The ruling by Judge Sweet is a big blow, however, for SFJ to make inroads in a case that is still being debated hotly in India, 30 years since it happened.