The Supreme Court on Tuesday ordered closure of all proceedings two Italian Marines, who had killed two Indian fishermen off the coast of Kerala in 2012, mistaking them to be pirates.
The bench of Justices Indira Banerjee and M.R. Shah observed that the State of Kerala, the heirs of the deceased fishermen as well as the owner of the boat has agreed to accept the compensation amount offered by the Republic of Italy.
Therefore, the bench directed that a compensation amount of Rs 10 crore which is lying in the Supreme Court registry to be transferred to the Kerala High Court. The bench also directed that Chief Justice of Kerala High Court should appoint a Judge for the proper disposal of money among the heirs of the deceased fishermen.
The amount of Rs 4 crores be given to each of the two victim’s heirs and the remaining Rs 2 crore amount to the boat owner St Anthony. The Republic of Italy must start criminal proceedings against the two Marines under its jurisdiction immediately and case details and pieces of evidence will be provided by the Republic of India and State of Kerala to Italy, the bench directed.
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Thereafter, the bench quashed all the FIRs and disposed off all the pending cases with respect to this issue.
The order is passed to bring curtains over the controversy following the Union government’s stand accepting the award of arbitration tribunal under UNCLOS, which gave criminal jurisdiction over marines to Italy but made India entitled to compensation.
Titus & Co represented the Republic of Italy at the Kerala High Court and the Sessions court, the Supreme Court and at the Arbitral Tribunal at the Hague through all stages of the case until today. “Our plea was that the Marines enjoy functional and military immunity and cannot be tried in the courts in India and that being military officials, Italy alone had jurisdiction to try them in Italy in accordance with its laws. This was our main argument from the date of the incident on February 15, 2012, partly allowed by the Supreme Court but finally decided in our (Italy’s)favour by the Arbitral Tribunal at the Hague whose Award we got implemented today by the Supreme Court,” said Diljeet Titus, lawyer and founder of Titus and Co.
Read order below:
22647_2012_41_43_28070_Order_15-Jun-2021