Apex court rips defence of 'sovereign immunity'

The Supreme Court says the Union government or any other nation having its  commercial and business establishments in the country can’t claim the immunity from certain native laws on the pretext of ‘sovereign immunity’ .

This is imperative in view of the modern era commercial global ties where there is “close interconnection between different countries as far as trade, commerce and business are concerned”.

“The principle of sovereign immunity can no longer be absolute in the way that it much earlier was,” a bench of justices Dalveer Bhandari, Mukundakam Sharma and Anil R Dave held while resolving a 19-years-old dispute whether Ethiopian Airlines can face trial under the Consumer Protection Act and the Carriage by Air Act.

Judges answered it in the positive saying the airlines is liable to face the consumer redressal protection forum at Mumbai which is seized of a complaint by Ganesh Narain Saboo alleging that the consignment of Reactive Dyes booked by him for Dar-es-Salaam, Tanzania on September 30, 1992 had been delayed and deteriorated.

He sought compensation from the airlines.