Constitution of India – Art. 32 – The petition seeks directions to the Union Government to cancel existing licences/permissions and to halt the grant of new licences to companies in India for the export of arms and military equipment to Israel during the ongoing conflict in Gaza:
Held: First, the conduct of an independent sovereign nation namely, Israel is not and cannot be made amenable to the jurisdiction of this Court – To consider the grant of the reliefs as sought, it would inevitably become necessary to enter a finding in regard to the allegations which have been leveled by the petitioners against the State of Israel – Absent jurisdiction over a sovereign State, it would be impermissible for this Court to entertain the grant of reliefs of this nature – The second aspect of the matter which requires to be noticed is that the petition seeks a cancellation of the existing licences and prohibition on the issuance of new licences for the export of arms and military equipments by Indian companies – Some of these licenses may be governed by contracts with international entities, including within the State of Israel – The grant of injunctive relief by this Court would necessarily implicate a judicial direction for breach of international contracts and agreements – The fall out of such breaches cannot be appropriately assessed by this Court and would lay open Indian companies which have firm commitments to proceedings for damages which may affect their own financial viability – Third, the statutory provisions of our law confer sufficient power on the Union Government if it decides to act in such cases – For instance, prohibitions can be imposed by the Union of India under the Foreign Trade (Regulation and Development Act) as well as under the provisions of the Customs Act, 1962 – Whether in a given case, any such action is warranted is a matter which has to be decided by the Union Government bearing in mind economic, geo-political and other interests of the nation in the conduct of international relations – The self-imposed restraint on Courts entering into areas of foreign policy is, thus, grounded in sound rationale which has been applied across time – For the above reasons, the reliefs which have been sought in these proceedings are not amenable to the exercise of judicial remedies under Article 32 of the Constitution. [Paras 7, 8, 9, 10, 11]
As published in the Supreme Court Reports, Supreme Court of India. Headnotes prepared by: Ankit Gyan. Text from the Indian Supreme Court Judgments open data set (Dattam Labs), CC BY 4.0.
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