US court summons Ajit Doval and former RAW chief
A US federal court has summoned Indian National Security Adviser Ajit Doval and former Research & Analysis Wing (RAW) chief Samant Goel.
The court issued the summon over a case filed by pro-Khalistan separatist lawyer Gurpatwant Singh Pannun.
The US State Department has separately confirmed that it transmitted the summons and complaint against the Government of India to the Indian Embassy in Washington last month.
In an order dated November 9, US District Judge Katherine Polk Failla of the Southern District of New York granted Pannun’s request to have the summons against Doval and Goel transmitted by US judiciary to Indian courts with jurisdiction over the addresses where the two officials are believed to reside.
The judgment came three weeks after the US State Department informed the court in a October 20 letter that it had transmitted the lawsuit against the “Government of India”. The department said the documents had been sent to the Indian Embassy in Washington under cover of a diplomatic note signed on Sep 30 and handed over on October 9.
The civil lawsuit was filed in September 2024 and names the Government of India, Doval, Goel, former RAW officer ‘Vikram’ Yadav, Nikhil Gupta and 50 unnamed defendants. Pannun has alleged that the defendants conspired to assassinate him at his home in New York in retaliation for his advocacy of an independent Sikh state.
The case is separate from the criminal prosecution of Gupta, who was indicted by US prosecutors for allegedly attempting to hire a hitman to kill Pannun on the instructions of a former officer of India’s external intelligence agency RAW. A subsequent indictment unsealed in October 2024 named former RAW operative Vikash Yadav as the alleged mastermind of the plot.
Gupta had pleaded guilty to all three counts in the murder-for-hire plot. He is scheduled to be sentenced on November 20.
The Indian government on Tuesday (November 10) expressly rejected that there was any alternate route for serving summons in India besides through the Law Ministry.
Responding to a question at the media briefing on Tuesday, Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal said, “We reject the fabricated and malicious attacks on our high officials. As also we reject the frivolous lawsuits. Requests for serving of judicial documents in India can only be routed through India’s designated central authority, that is, the Ministry of Law and Justice.”
US State department had sent diplomatic note to Indian Embassy
The diplomatic note, issued under Section 1608(a)(4) of the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act (FSIA) and sent to the Indian Embassy, requested that the summons and complaint be forwarded to the appropriate Indian authority. It informed the Indian government that a defendant must respond within 60 days of the transmittal of the complaint, warning that it “risks the possibility of having judgment entered against it without the opportunity to present arguments or evidence on its behalf” if it fails to do so.
The November 9 ruling concerns the separate attempts to serve Doval and Goel in their individual capacities. The judge accepted Pannun’s argument that Article 19 of the Hague Convention on the Service Abroad of Judicial and Extrajudicial Documents permits service through the Indian judicial system because India’s domestic law provides for such a mechanism.
Article 19 allows countries party to the Convention to retain domestic laws permitting methods of transmitting foreign judicial documents for service within their territories that are not otherwise specified in the Convention.
US court cites India’s Code of Civil Procedure
The court cited Section 29(c) of India’s Code of Civil Procedure which allows summons issued by foreign civil courts to be sent to Indian courts and served as if they had been issued by those courts. It also referred to a January 2009 notification by the Indian government declaring that Section 29 would apply to civil courts in all countries party to the Hague Convention.
The procedure is laid out in Order V, Section 21 of the Code of Civil Procedure, which allows a court to send summons to another court having jurisdiction over the place where the defendant resides.
Pannun had identified three possible courts in Delhi to receive the summons for Doval and Goel, namely the Patiala House Court Complex, Dwarka Courts Complex and Tis Hazari Court Complex.
“The Court agrees with Plaintiff that Article 19 of the Hague Convention authorises service on Doval and Goel through service of summons mailed to those courts,” Failla wrote.
The latest ruling follows several unsuccessful attempts by Pannun’s legal team to serve Doval personally during his official visits to the US. According to the court’s account, three attempts to serve him were blocked by security forces protecting the NSA as part of the delegation accompanying Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi during his visit in Feb 2025.
His lawyers had also attempted to serve Doval, Goel and former RAW officer Vikash Yadav through India’s Ministry of Law and Justice, which functions as the country’s Central Authority for processing foreign service requests under the Hague Convention.
Under the November 9 order, Pannun must submit a proposed packet by Nov 30 containing copies of the summons for Doval and Goel, a proposed order specifying the method of service, the Indian legal provisions relied upon and the returned Hague Convention documents demonstrating that service under Article 5 had been attempted and rejected.
Once the court approves the materials, its clerk will transmit the packet to the three Indian courts identified by Pannun.
The judge, however, rejected Pannun’s separate argument that the Hague Convention did not apply to his service requests because India’s Central Authority had returned the documents, stating that they did not fall within the relevant categories.
“Absent clarification from the Indian Central Authority, the Court cannot discount the possibility that this laconic response constituted a denial on procedural or technical grounds, rather than a merits determination that the Hague Convention does not apply to Plaintiff’s request,” she wrote.
The judge also rejected Pannun’s argument that India had categorically refused to process service requests under the Hague Convention. While acknowledging that courts in the Southern District of New York had previously found the Indian government to be “dilatory and unresponsive” to such requests, she said Pannun had not established that India categorically refused to process them.
Judge Failla noted that the US state department had informed the court that in a March 26 letter that service through diplomatic channels under the FSIA was unavailable under the governing law in relation to foreign “officials” like Doval and Goel.
The judge accepted that position in an April 1 order, rejecting Pannun’s proposal to use that route for the two individuals.
However, when subsequently consulted on Pannun’s proposal to serve them through Indian courts, the State Department informed the court that it took no position on the matter.
Incidentally, the March 26 letter from the US State Department’s Acting Assistant Legal Adviser had noted that the FSIA was the “exclusive method” for service of process on “foreign states”. More than six months later, the US State Department sent a diplomatic note to the Indian Embassy concerning the summons and complaint against the “Republic of India”.
In Nikhil Gupta’s sentencing, prosecutor to present audio and video evidence in open court
In the separate case pertaining to the criminal prosecution of Gupta, last week, the US Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York wrote in a letter to the judge that “a single victim-witness” would make a statement of around 20 minutes. Pannun is not officially identified in the court documents, but he has publicly identified himself as the target of the alleged plot.
The US prosecutor also said in the November 6 letter that it would present evidence in the open court.
“Second, the Government expects to play a limited number of audio and/or video exhibits during its sentencing presentation, which the Government estimates will be no more than approximately fifteen minutes”.
The prosecutor also noted that around 200 spectators may attend the hearing, which may require arrangements to accommodate the large crowd.
“Accordingly, the Government respectfully submits that use of an overflow courtroom or the ceremonial courtroom may be appropriate in this case.”
Source: The Wire