SC issues notice to Centre on Somali pirates

The Supreme Court on Monday issued notice to the Centre on a public interest litigation seeking direction to the government to frame effective anti-piracy guidelines in the wake of increasing incidents of Indian seamen being held hostages by Somali pirates.

A bench of justices K S Radhakrishnan and Dipak Misra sought response from ministries of external affairs, home and shipping on the plea seeking its intervention for release of Indian seamen, some of them have been held captive since 2010 by Somalian pirates.

The bench was hearing a PIL filed by advocate Gaurav Kumar Bansal alleging that number of incidents of hijacking Indian ships at high seas in growing as the government has not adopted a proper mechanism to deal with such cases in an effective manner.

He said that Somalian pirates have been holding captive six of the 34 Indian seamen since March 29, 2010 and 17 others since March 2, 2012 and 11 seamen since May 10, 2012.

Pleading the court to interfere in the case, the petitioner claimed that relatives of the seamen had made representations to president, prime minister, and various ministries but have not been able to get a satisfactory reply from them.