“Are they still alive,” the Supreme Court on Tuesday asked the Centre expressing concern over the present status of 54 Indian Prisoners of War languishing in Pakistan jails since 1971.
“We don’t know,” Solicitor General Ranjit Kumar, appearing for the external affairs and defence ministries, told a bench of Justices T S Thakur and Kurian Joseph.
“We presume that they are dead as Pakistan has been denying their presence in their prisons,” he said.
The reply came when the bench asked, “First tell us, what is your understanding about their status? Are they dead or alive?”
The court then directed the government to pay the salary and retirement benefits to the dependents of the PoWs, to which the law officer said this was being done.
Referring to the contents of an affidavit filed by the defence ministry, the Solicitor General said “as such, the exact status of these 54 missing defence personnel, believed to be in Pakistan jails, is not known. Amongst 54 such personnel, no service details are available with respect of three personnel of the Indian Army.”
In response to a query as to why India cannot take the matter of the PoWs to the International Court of Justice, the SG said India has not submitted itself to the jurisdiction of ICJ if the matter relates to armed conflict between it and Pakistan.
Moreover, India had once successfully blocked such a bid by Pakistan, he said when the bench referred to the fact that once the water dispute between the two countries was taken to the ICJ.
The bench then adjourned hearing on three petitions raising the issue of POWs, brutality meted out to Saurav Kalia during Kargil War and beheading and mutilation of bodies of two Indian soldiers in 2013 by Pakistani army, for a direction to the union government to move the International Court of Justice.
While the Solicitor General was mentioning about the recent affidavit, the bench said, “since Indian soldiers are in Pakistan for the wars of 1965 and 1971, we want to know whether their family members have been given the pay and retiremental benefits.”
“Does it require a court order,” the bench asked the law officer, who said all these issues are taken care of.
He said Indian authorities had tried from all channels to ascertain the facts about 54 PoWs, but Pakistan is not accepting that they are in their country.
The MoD, in its recent affidavit, has informed the court that it has no details regarding 54 missing POWs in Pakistan jails after 1965 and 1971 wars.
It also said it cannot even identify three such army personnel since their service records, unit and family details were not known.
Of 54 missing personnel, 27 were from the army, 24 from the air force, two from the navy and one personnel from the Border Security Force, it has said, adding that while 48 out of the 54 were missing since the 1971 war, three went missing in the 1965 war.
The affidavit was filed in response to a query by the court which wanted an updated status on the PoWs languishing in Pakistan jails following the two wars.
Earlier, the court had imposed a cost of Rs 20,000 on the government for its failure to provide the current status of Indian POWs.
The bench had said that the ministries have failed to comply with its six-month-old order directing them to file a report on the current status of 54 POWs languishing in Pakistan jails for the last 43 years, as also a counter affidavit.
The court had referred to the case of Pakistan raising in the ICJ the issue of downing of its spy aircraft in August 1999 by Indian forces despite New Delhi’s objection which was upheld by the international tribunal.
The focus of the earlier hearing was on the issue of POWs and the government had said it cannot refer these cases to the ICJ as India is governed by a bilateral agreement with Pakistan based on the 1972 Shimla agreement.
On the issue of POWs, the apex court had in 2012 stayed a Gujarat high court order directing the union government to move the ICJ on Pakistan illegally detaining 54 Indian Army men in breach of an agreement between the two countries after the 1971 war to exchange all prisoners of war.
