Italy Yet To Deposit 10 Crores Compensation In Enrica Lexie-Italian Case

Background facts

• A fishing boat passed the tanker of Italy ‘Erica Lexie’ at 20.5 miles of the Kerala coastline.
• Two of the marine officers on the ship mistook the boat as a pirate boat and the fishermen to be pirates, opened fire leading to the death of the two fishermen.

Permanent Court of Arbitration

• The case was brought before the Permanent Court of Arbitration at The Hague.
• The PCA ruled that Italy has to give compensation to India as they had violated the international law and breached India’s freedom of navigation granted under UN Convention on the Law of the Sea.
• Italy is supposed to provide compensation for the ‘loss of life, material and moral harm suffered by the captain and grew of the Indian shipping vessel’.
• The marines however are entitled to sovereign immunity and cannot be pressed with criminal charges so the proceedings in the Indian Court also need to be ended on the promise of Italy to try the marines in the Italian Courts.

Compensation to India

• The Kerala Government provided 4 Crores compensation to the families of the fishermen and 2 Crores to the owner of the shipping vessel. Italy had paid a compensation of 2.17 Crores to the families.
• Italy was asked to compensate India with 10 Crores as award which was to be transferred to the Supreme Court of India.
• The Centre requested to quash the proceedings against the two marines as decided at the PCA to which the Supreme Court stated that the proceedings would be quashed only after the payment of compensation by the Republic of Italy.

Do you think the decision of the Supreme Court to not quash the proceedings before the compensation is paid, is correct? Tell us in the comments below!