Punjab & Haryana HC issues notice to MEA on prisoner of war

The Punjab and Haryana High Court today issued notice to the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) on an aged woman's plea seeking release of her husband, lodged in a Pakistani jail, by moving a case in the International Court of Justice (ICJ).
Justice M M S Bedi issued the notice, returnable by August 4, on the petition filed by 78-year-old Pal Kaur of Lehra Dhudkot in Bathinda district.
Kaur sought the direction to the government to take up the matter of release of her husband, Havaldar Dharam Pal Singh, and also file appropriate proceedings, if necessary, in the ICJ, for his release, as a prisoner of war, under the Simla Agreement.

In her petition, filed through advocate Hari Chand Arora, Kaur stated that her husband had fought the 1971 war against Pakistan and was captured by the Pakistan Army.
However, the government and the Indian Army treated him as a martyr on the basis that he was missing with effect from December 5, 1971, she claimed.
According to the petitioner, another war prisoner Satish Kumar of Ferozepur informed her that he stayed with her husband in the same jail till 1976 before being taken to another prison.
Kaur filed the instant civil writ petition based on an affidavit signed by Kumar, who was released in the past.