Centre can’t take Saurabh Kalia case to International Court of Justice

New Delhi: The Narendra Modi government on Tuesday re-affirmed the stand of the previous UPA government that India cannot raise the issue of prisoners of war or the issue of the killing of Capt. Saurabh Kalia by the Pakistan Army during the Kargil war in the international court of justice.

Saurabh Kalia, of the four Jat Regiment, was captured by the Pakistani troops along with five other Indian soldiers on May 15, 1999. He was held in captivity and tortured gruesomely, but the brave soldier did not betray his motherland.

They sent him back to India with his eardrums pierced with hot rods, eyes punctured and removed, most of his teeth and bones broken, and limbs and genitals cut or chopped off. 

When the bodies of soldiers, including Kalia’s, were handed over to India by the Pakistan Army on June 9 the same year, there was nationwide outrage and a cry for justice against the way the prisoners of war were treated, in violation to the Geneva Convention on treatment of war prisoners. 

Maintaining the UPA stand, solicitor-general Ranjit Kumar informed a bench of Justices T.S. Thakur and Kurian Joseph that the matter cannot be raised in the ICJ.

The bench asked Mr Kumar why the government was not taking up the issues of prisoners of war (PoW) to the international court of justice when India was going to the forum for resolution of water disputes.

He said, “Disputes relating to or connected with facts or situations of hostilities, armed conflicts, individual or collective actions taken in self-defence…” cannot be taken to the ICJ. 

The Supreme Court issued a notice to the Union government on a petition by Capt. Saurabh Kalia’s father N.K. Kalia on December 14, 2012, seeking a direction that the matter should be referred to the International Court of Justice.

The bench, which is also dealing with the case of 54 soldiers who were stated to be missing in the 1965 and 1971 Indo-Pakistan wars and believed to be in Pakistan jails, questioned the Centre’s silence and also asked why compensation was not paid to the families.

The S-G said, “The government has taken up with the Pak government at all appropriate levels the issue of release and repatriation of 54 missing defence personnel believed to be in Pakistani jails. However, the Pak never acknowledged their presence in its custody. The government will continue with efforts to raise the issue.”