Mumbai: The Bombay high court has dismissed a public interest litigation filed by the owner of a ship that sank in November 1989 against Queen Beatrix of Netherlands after the prothonotary had observed that there was no prayer seeking any relief. The petitioner in 2011 had contested a suit on the same issue unsuccessfully. The suit had claimed that as the ship had been repaired by a Dutch company prior to its sinking, the Netherlands queen was to be held responsible for paying for the damages as the Dutch firm was her ‘subject’. However, the court rejected it on the grounds that the former monarch could not be held responsible.
A bench of Justices Ranjit More and Anuja Prabhudessai was hearing the PIL filed by Khurshed Soli Dhondy, owner of SK Dhondy and Co, which is involved in the shipping business. In the PIL, Mr Dhondy claimed that as the Dutch subjects were “thriving on slavery and defaming him and his father”, the Dutch Constitution “needs to be amended so that there should not be anyone else open for Dutch Slavery.”
Mr Dhondy’s father had filed a suit in 1994 claiming damages from the Dutch royalty, as a ship owned by him had sunk on November 28, 1989. The father had claimed damages from the sovereign as the ship was repaired by the firm Van Heerde, a subject of the queen of Netherlands under a Bilateral Trade Agreement between India and Holland, to attend to repairs concerning the said vessel. However after the repairs, the vessel had sunk, hence the queen was liable to pay damages. After the demise of his father, Mr Dhondy became the plaintiff.
The suit which was finally decided in 2011 by Justice R.Y. Ganoo had held that as the suit was not maintainable on various grounds such as the queen enjoyed diplomatic immunity and Mr Dhondy had not been able to prove the connection of Mr Heerde’s as a subject of the queen. The dismissal of the suit was also based on the Law of Limitation as it had been filed two years after the period for filing a claim had expired in 1992.
During the hearing of the PIL, the bench of Justice More referred to the observations of the prothonotary on November 21, 2017 which said, ‘In the said Office Submission dated 20.11.2017, it is stated that the cause mentioned in the pleadings appears to be of individual nature and not in the interest of public at large so also the Petitioner has not asked for any reliefs in the captioned Petition.’
