Gujarat HC dismisses PIL seeking justice for Sarabjit Singh

AHMEDABAD: The Gujarat High Court today dismissed a PIL seeking a direction to the central government to approach the International Court of Justice over the murder of Indian prisoner Sarabjit Singh in Pakistan jail.

The division bench of Chief Justice Bhaskar Bhattacharya and Justice J B Pardiwala held that the issue was outside the High Court's jurisdiction.

For such issues, the Central government should be approached, the court remarked.

On May 2, Sarabjit Singh, who was on the death row, died of cardiac arrest at a Lahore hospital after being comatose for nearly a week following a brutal assault by some inmates of the high-security Lahore jail.

Advocate Girish Das, the petitioner, had contended that Sarabjit was killed and his body was sent without some of the vital organs, but the Indian Government did nothing to get justice for him.

"This was also a clear breach of international treaties signed by the two neighbouring countries....duty has been cast upon Union of India to protect Sarabjit's fundamental rights as well as human rights inside or outside the country," claimed Das in his petition.

Sarabjit's murder was also a clear breach of `Taskent Declaration' registered with the United Nations Secretariat by the Government of India on March 22, 1966, the PIL said.

"Under the declaration, the Prime Minister of India and the President of Pakistan agreed that both sides will exert all efforts to create good neighbourly relations between India and Pakistan in accordance with the United Nations Charter," the petition said.