US court allows Gurpatwant Pannun to serve lawsuit on Ajit Doval, ex-RAW head Samant Goel through Delhi courts

The United States District Court for the Southern District of New York has allowed Khalistani separatist Gurpatwant Singh Pannun to serve his lawsuit on National Security Advisor Ajit Doval and former Research and Analysis Wing (RAW) chief Samant Goel through Indian courts in connection with a lawsuit alleging a conspiracy to assassinate him on American soil.

In an order dated November 9, US District Judge Katherine Polk Failla allowed Pannun's application to serve the two Indian officials through district courts in Delhi under the Hague Convention on the Service Abroad of Judicial and Extrajudicial Documents.

The Court agreed with Pannun that Article 19 of the Hague Convention authorises service on Doval and Goel through service of summons mailed to those courts.

It has now directed Pannun to submit a proposed service packet by November 30, following which the Clerk of Court will transmit the documents to the identified Indian courts. 

Pannun, the general counsel of Sikhs for Justice (SFJ), filed the suit in 2024, naming the Government of India, Doval, Goel, Vikram Yadav, Nikhil Gupta and several unnamed defendants. He alleged that they conspired to kill him over his role in the Khalistan movement.

He told the Court that he had thrice tried to serve Doval during visits to the US but was blocked by security personnel. His attempts to serve Doval, Goel and Yadav through India’s Central Authority at the Ministry of Law and Justice also failed.

The court had earlier, on April 1, rejected Pannun’s efforts to serve the defendants through email service on India’s Attorney General, service on Yadav’s lawyers in an unrelated criminal case, and service by publication. 

It also agreed with the US State Department that service through diplomatic channels under the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act was unavailable because of India’s reservation on Article 8 of the Convention. 

Notably, the US State Department took no position on the Indian-courts route.

On the issue of summons through Indian court, Pannun argued that India's Code of Civil Procedure (CPC) allows foreign summons to be transmitted to Indian courts and served as though they were summons issued by those courts.

Accepting the argument, the New York Court referred to Section 29(c) of the CPC, which permits summons issued by foreign civil courts to be sent to Indian courts, provided the Central government has notified the applicability of the provision.

It noted that India had issued a notification in January 2009 extending Section 29 to civil courts in countries that are parties to the Hague Convention.

The Court also referred to Order V Rule 21 of the CPC, which provides for transmission of summons between courts having jurisdiction over the place where a defendant resides.

[Read Order]