Centre fined for not filing reply to PIL

According to the lawyer of the petitioner,Kishor Paul,the petition was filed as 54 Indian soldiers were still languishing in Pakistani jails.

Two of these 54 are from Gujarat. Paul said the petition called for efforts to get the PoWs released at the earliest,and to compensate their kin.

“According to the Simla Agreement (1972),Pakistan had released 632 Indian soldiers. However,in 1999 we came to know that 54

Indian soldiers were still lodged in Pakistani jails,” said Paul.

Last week,the court had fined the Centre Rs 10,000 for not filing their reply in the matter for the past 11 years.

The court had asked the Centre to file an affidavit in the next one week.

On Monday,the Deputy Judge — Advocate General (Litigation) of the Army appeared before the court on behalf of the Ministry of Defence along with the Central Government’s counsel.

The government counsel had submitted before the court that technically the 54 were not PoWs and that they were “missing defence personnel”.

Subsequently,the counsel submitted an application to cancel the previous order of fine and to give them two months’ time to file an affidavit. The court,however,rejected the prayer.

The court slammed another fine of Rs 10,000 and asked the Union Government to file the affidavit by February 22.

The court has also ordered to give the amount of Rs 20,000 to the Army Welfare Fund.