MANHATTAN, New York, USA—The Congress party has approached a US court seeking dismissal of a lawsuit filed by a Sikh rights group over the 1984 anti-Sikh pograms, and acts of Sikh genocide, in Punjab, saying that American courts do not have subject matter jurisdiction over the case.
Congress party’s attorney Ravi Batra yesterday filed a memorandum of law at a Manhattan court in support of a pending motion to dismiss the lawsuit filed by Sikhs for Justice (SFJ).
The new memorandum said that SFJ “unjustly” seeks to hold the Congress party, which is not a “natural person”, liable in a US court for “acts occurring in India nearly three decades ago, involving only residents of India, with no plausible nexus to the United States.”
Batra said in the memorandum that “controlling precedent” deprives the federal court of subject matter jurisdiction over SFJ’s other claims under the Alien Tort Statute (ATS).
Under the controlling precedent, business entities, and corporations, cannot be sued in the United States for human rights violations committed in foreign countries.
Batra said SFJ, and other plaintiffs, “wish to weaken American sovereignty, and upset the comity amongst nations” with their lawsuit.
SFJ said that it will challenge the Congress party’s motion to dismiss the human rights violation lawsuit.
Robert Sweet will hear arguments in the case on March 19, 2014.
In March of 2011, a US court issued summons against the Congress in a class action lawsuit filed by SFJ under the Alien Tort Statute, and Torture Victim Protection Act.
No perpetrators have ever been brought to justice for the horrendous acts of Sikh genocide in the three decades that have passed since the 1984 “anti-Sikh pogroms” in which the deaths of thousands of innocent Sikhs occurred.
