US COURT ASKS STATE DEPARTMENT TO EXPLAIN IMMUNITY FOR PM MODI

NEW DELHI: A US court has asked the State Department to respond by December 10 to the objections raised by a rights group over the immunity granted to Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

The American Justice Centre (AJC) that has been pursuing the lawsuit it had filed against PM Modi for his alleged role in the 2002 Gujarat violence, filed a memorandum last week asking for legal justification why the case against him should not move forward. And posed the question as to why PM Modi should be granted immunity for the violence that took place under his watch as the Gujarat Chief Minister.

The US had,under pressure from rights bodies, had denied a visa to PM Modi for over ten years until his visit recently to New York and Washington as the Indian head of government. AJC had filed a case against him, and has subsequently filed the memorandum challenging the immunity.

In response to the AJC’s brief, the US District Court for the Southern District of New York has directed the US State Department to respond to AJC’s legal brief challenging the US position on Modi’s immunity. The order requires the State Department to respond by December 10 to AJC’s “objection to the suggestion of immunity”.

AJC President Joseph Whittington, according to reports from New York, expressed confidence of the sound legal basis for the case against Modi and said he expects the court to allow the lawsuit to move forward.

“Survivors of the horrific Gujarat massacres expect the US to uphold its own laws as well as international norms of justice,” he further added.

AJC said Modi is being sued for acts committed as Chief Minister of Gujarat and not for any acts that he committed as India’s Prime Minister.

“It is undisputed that foreign sovereign immunity extends only to the ‘head of the foreign government’ for the actions committed during tenure as the ’head of foreign government’,” AJC’s Memorandum of Law said.

AJC said Modi is not immune under Foreign Sovereign Immunity Act (FSIA), as the US Supreme Court decided that the term “foreign state” does not include individual government officials. In the Tort case against Modi, it is the individual who is being sued and not the Republic of India, the group added.

The lawsuit against Modi has been filed by AJC along with two survivors of the post-Godhra violence under the Alien Tort Claims Act (ATCA) and Torture Victims Protection Act (TVPA).

Last month, US Attorney Preet Bharara had told a federal court here that the Executive Branch of the US government “has determined that Prime Minister