Penal Code, 1860 – ss.302, 307, 427 and 34 – United Nationals Convention on the Law of the Sea, 1982 (UNCLOS) – Annex VII – On 15.02.2012, two fishermen who were onboard the boat registered in India, were fired at from a passing ship (an Italian vessel) due to which both the fishermen died – FIR was registered – Two Italian Marines- Petitioner no.1 & 2 were apprehended by the police – A writ petition was filed by the Marines before the High Court challenging the jurisdiction of the State and the Circle Inspector of Police – Meanwhile, the Chief Judicial Magistrate committed the case to the Court of Sessions – The writ petition was dismissed by the High Court – Aggrieved, the Marines-petitioners preferred the Special leave petition – It is the case of the petitioners that India and Italy having signed and ratified the 1982 United Nationals Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) agreed to settle the dispute concerning the incident in question, in terms of the binding dispute resolution mechanism provided under Annex VII of the UNCLOS – International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea (ITLOS) required both Italy and India to suspend all court proceedings and recorded agreement of both the parties for the same – Thereafter, award dated 21.05.2020 was delivered by the Annex VII Arbitral Tribunal – That under the award, the Republic of Italy had agreed to the amount of Rs.10 crores to be paid by Italy as total compensation, excluding the amount of INR 21.7 million already paid by Italy to the families of the victims – The State Government proposed to disburse Rs.4 crores to the dependents of each deceased and Rs.2 crores to the owner of the boat – The legal heirs of each deceased and the owner of the boat have agreed to the proposal and consented in writing to accept the amount of compensation – In the light of these development, it is prayed to dispose of these proceedings and quash criminal proceedings u/Art.142 of the Constitution – Held: Republic of Italy, Union of India, State of Kerala and the heirs of the deceased fishermen and the owner of the boat have agreed to accept the award dated 21.05.2020 of the Arbitral Tribunal – Also considering the fact that the Arbitral Tribunal constituted under Annex VII of UNCLOS has delivered its award dated 21.05.2020 under which the Republic of Italy has agreed to pay the compensation of Rs. 10 crores, over and above the amount of ex-gratia amount already paid and that the Arbitral Tribunal has also duly recorded Republic of Italy’s commitment that following the award Italy will resume its criminal investigation into the incident of 15.02.2012 – The amount of compensation over and above the ex-gratia amount of compensation already paid to the heirs of the deceased fishermen is satisfactory – It is a fit case to close all the proceedings in India including criminal proceedings in exercise of powers u/Art. 142 of the Constitution – Thus, the registered FIR is quashed and all the pending matters before the Supreme Court are disposed of – Further, the Union of India, Republic of Italy and the State of Kerala are directed to cooperate with each other in pursuit of that investigation relating to incident dated 15.02.2012.
As published in the Supreme Court Reports, Supreme Court of India. Text from the Indian Supreme Court Judgments open data set (Dattam Labs), CC BY 4.0.
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