The Supreme Court on Wednesday sought details from the Centre regarding the steps taken by it for securing the release of Indian national Gopal Das from Pakistan jail after he had served life sentence on being convicted on the charges of spying.

Solicitor General Gopal Subramaniam was directed to place before the court details of the action taken by the government by a bench of Justices Markandey Katju and T.S. Thakur during a brief hearing of a pending petition of Gopal Das’ brother Anand Veer.
Veer in his petition had alleged that despite the Pakistan government declaring release of his brother on the occasion of its Independence Day on August 14, 2007, the “diplomatic process” for securing his safe return was being delayed. Mr Subramaniam in an oral submission informed the court that some action was being taken by the government for securing the release of Gopal Das and some other Indian prisoners lodged in Pakistan jail under the “reciprocal understanding.”
Gopal Das, hailing from Gurdaspur in Punjab, was arrested in 1984 by Pakistan Rangers and charged with “espionage” under the Official Secrets Act (OSA) of that country. The Indian government, however, had denied that he was a “spy” but claimed that he had “strayed” into Pakistan territory by mistake.
Even Gopal Das’ brother in the petition had stated that he was not a “spy” but was tried and convicted “wrongly” by the Pakistan Army’s Field Court Martial General under the OSA on “false” allegation of espionage.
He was given specified life sentence of 25 years but six years of it were remitted in 2005 making him eligible for release form jail. Since then, he had been lodged in Mianwali jail, where according to the petition — based on a sorts of “filtered’ communication received by Gopal Das’ brother — some 182 other Indian prisoners were also lodged.
Veer in the petition further stated that he had been taking up the matter time and again with the government, including Indian High Commission in Islamabad since 1988 when he first came to know about his brother’s imprisonment, but without any success so far, compelling him to knock the doors of the apex court.
Though Pakistan government had taken some steps relating to his release but due to “diplomatic delay,” no further movement was visible in this regard, the petition stated, while urging the court to issue a direction to the government to speed up the process.

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‘Paramilitary not under CAT ambit’
Age correspondent
New Delhi

July 7: The Supreme Court on Wednesday refused to entertain a petition seeking to bring paramilitary forces like the CRPF, BSF, ITBP and SSB under the ambit of the Central Administrative Tribunal to bring them on par with other Central government employees in matters of enforcing service rules.
A PIL by advocate Lilly Thomas raised the question of applicability of the Central service rule to the personnel of the paramilitary forces in the background of their over-stretched duties and the killing of a large number of CRPF personnel in recent attacks by Maoists and involvement of the force in maintaining law and order in militancy infested Jammu and Kashmir.
A bench, headed by Chief Justice of India S.H. Kapadia and comprising Justices K.S. Radhakrishanan and Swatanter Kumar expressed its inability to entertain the PIL, saying that since these forces were created under “special laws,” they could not be treated as any other Central government services.
In the opinion of the court, the paramilitary forces had an “important role” to play in the defence of the country.
According to the bench, forces like the BSF, ITBP and SSB are among the paramilitary forces were doing duty akin to the defence forces guarding country’s borders, it was not possible to bring them under the ambit of the CAT.
The apex court was of the view that any matter related to the services of the personnel of these forces had to be dealt with as per the specific legislations, under which they were created.
In the wake of court’s observations, Thomas preferred to withdraw her PIL, which was declared as “dismissed as withdrawn” by the bench.