What a US Judge Has Said About Dr Manmohan Singh

Former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh is immune from claims that he supported the genocide of Sikhs during his decade leading the country, a federal judge has ruled in the US.

But. District Judge James Boasberg in the District of Columbia said on Tuesday that Dr Singh, who resigned in May, did not have "head-of-state immunity" from claims arising from his time as Finance Minister.

Inderjit Singh, a Sikh living in the US, claimed in the 2013 suit that as Finance Minister from 1991 to 1996, Dr Singh funded cash rewards for members of the military who murdered Sikhs. When he was Prime Minister, according to the suit, Dr Singh was complicit in the torture and killing of hundreds of thousands of members of the religious minority.

Boasberg said US law bars former heads of state from being sued for actions they took while in office, but not for private acts or those taken in prior government posts.

Thousands of Sikhs were killed in 1984 in the days following the assassination of Prime Minister Indira Gandhi by her Sikh bodyguards.

Inderjit Singh in his suit claimed Dr Singh authorized "counterinsurgency operations" across India in which hundreds of thousands of Sikhs were kidnapped, murdered and buried in mass graves. The prime minister also shielded and promoted political allies and members of the military who orchestrated massacres of Sikhs, Singh said.