The apex court asked Pakistani authorities to consider the appeal by an Indian prisoner Gopal Dass languishing in Pakistani jail and release him on humanitarian grounds.
The judgment which started with a couplet of revolutionary poet Faiz Ahmed Faiz : Qafas udaas hai yaaro saba se kuchh to kaho / Kahin to bahr-e-Khuda aaj zikar-e-yaar chale said: “We cannot give any directions to Pakistan authorities because we have no jurisdiction over them. The Indian authorities have done all that they could in the matter”,.
The bench of Justice Markandey Katju and Justice Gyan Sudha Misra in the their judgment also said that law does not does not “prevent us from making a request to the Pakistani authorities to consider the appeal of the petitioner for releasing him on humanitarian grounds by remitting the remaining part of his sentence.”
The judgment noted that about 182 Indian prisoners were languishing in Pakistan jails for many years. While disposing off the petition by Gopal Dass moved by his brother Anand, the court asked the Solicitor General Gopal Subramanium to “communicate the order to the Pakistan High Commissioner in India who is requested to communicate it to the concerned Pakistan authorities.”
In his petition Gopal Dass has said that he was intercepted and arrested by the Pakistan Border Security Force in July 1984 when he allegedly by mistake crossed over the Indo-Pakistan border into Pakistan.
Gopal Dass was tried by a Field General Court Martial at Sialkot Cantonment in Pakistan and was awarded life sentence on December 27, 1986 under the Pakistan Official Secrets Act, 1923. The said sentence was confirmed by Brigadier Mallik, Commander, 10th Brigade. He was lodged in different jails, and presently is allegedly in Mianwali Jail in Pakistan.