The Supreme Court on Thursday dismissed a plea seeking directions to the Centre to drag China to the International Court of Justice claiming damages of 600 billion Dollars holding China responsible for the spread of COVID 19 pandemic.
The bench comprising Chief Justice SA Bobde, Justice Dinesh Maheshwari and Justice AS Bopanna has dismissed the petition filed by KK Ramesh through Advocate CR Jaya Sukin which sought directions to drag China to the International Court of Justice claiming damages to the tune of 600 billion US dollars for spreading COVID 19 across the globe.
The petitioner has submitted that since the International court of Justice has no jurisdiction to hear individual petitions, the petitioner left with no other alternative & has approached the Supreme Court with his prayer.
Article 93(1) of the United Nations charter says that “all members of the United Nations are ipso facto parties to the statute of International Court of Justice but the same does not apply for a common citizen.”
The petitioner has alleged that the “Peoples republic of China had deliberately created biological weapon COVID 19 against India” due to which many people have lost their lives and has also destroyed the Indian economy.
The petitioner has stated that China being a party to the 1984 Biological Weapon Convention, agreed to prohibit, develop, produce and stockpile Biological and Toxin Weapons, however there is strong evidence that COVID 19 virus was created by China in the Wuhan Institute of Virology.
The petitioner has further negated China’s claim that the virus originated from bats and has alleged that China created the virus as a catastrophic biological weapon to kill mass population in India. The petitioner has also highlighted the impact of COVID 19 on Indian economy and the plight of migrants with the World Banks warning that the pandemic will hit the economy very hard without having recourse to poverty alleviation measures.
-India Legal Bureau