Answer By law4u team
Sovereign immunity under Indian law is a legal doctrine that historically protected the state from being sued in its own courts without its consent, but over decades, Indian courts have significantly curtailed this principle to uphold constitutional rights and accountability. Under English common law, the maxim was that the King can do no wrong, meaning the Crown was immune from civil liability for torts committed by its servants. When the British established governance in India, this concept was introduced, and it initially provided broad protection to the government against lawsuits for damages. The foundational statutory provision addressing this is Article 300 of the Constitution of India, which deals with suits and proceedings involving the Union of India and the state governments. Article 300 states that the Government of India may sue or be sued by the name of the Union of India and the government of a state may sue or be sued by the name of the state, and it provides that they may sue or be sued in relation to their affairs in the like cases as the Dominion of India and the corresponding provinces might have sued or been sued if the Constitution had not been enacted. This provision essentially inherited the pre-constitutional legal position, which was governed by Section 65 of the Government of India Act, 1858. Therefore, to understand the exact scope of sovereign immunity in India, courts have had to examine the historical boundary between the sovereign and non-sovereign functions of the state. The landmark judgment that defined the scope of sovereign immunity in post-independence India is State of Rajasthan v. Vidyawati, decided by the Supreme Court of India in 1962. In this case, a pedestrian was knocked down and killed by a speeding jeep owned by the State of Rajasthan and driven by a government employee who was returning from a workshop after getting it repaired. The Supreme Court held that the state was liable for the tortious act of its servant just like any private employer. The court reasoned that in a welfare state operating under a written constitution, there is no justification for the state to claim immunity for the torts of its employees, and the old distinction between sovereign and non-sovereign functions should not be used to deny compensation to citizens for wrongful acts committed by state machinery. This judgment appeared to dismantle sovereign immunity entirely, establishing a progressive stance that the government should be held accountable in tort law just like any private citizen or corporation. However, just a few years later, the Supreme Court narrowed this expansive ruling in the equally important case of Kasturilal Ralia Ram Jain v. State of Uttar Pradesh, decided in 1965. In Kasturilal, the partners of a firm were arrested on suspicion of possessing stolen gold, and the police seized a large quantity of gold from them. The gold was kept in the police station malkhana for safe custody, but a head constable misappropriated the gold and fled to Pakistan. The firm filed a suit against the State of Uttar Pradesh for the return of the gold or, in the alternative, for compensation equal to its value. The Supreme Court held that the state was not liable because the police officers were exercising statutory powers of arrest and seizure, which constituted a sovereign function of the state. The court drew a strict line between sovereign functions, which are traditional governmental powers connected to the maintenance of law and order, defense, and administration, and non-sovereign functions, which are commercial, trading, or welfare activities. The court ruled that sovereign immunity continued to apply when the tortious act was committed by a public servant in the course of discharging a sovereign function. The distinction established in Kasturilal created a major hurdle for citizens seeking justice against arbitrary state action, but the judiciary subsequently found ways to bypass the rigid limitations of sovereign immunity, primarily through public law remedies under the Constitution of India. When the traditional civil courts proved inadequate due to the defense of sovereign immunity in tort suits, the Supreme Court and the High Courts began utilizing Article 32 and Article 226 of the Constitution to award monetary compensation for violations of fundamental rights, particularly the right to life and personal liberty under Article 21 of the Constitution. This development is known as constitutional tort. In the monumental case of Rudul Sah v. State of Bihar, the Supreme Court held that compensation is a palliative for the unlawful deprivation of a fundamental right and ordered the state to pay monetary compensation for illegal detention. This established that the defense of sovereign immunity cannot be raised when a citizen approaches the constitutional courts alleging a direct violation of fundamental rights by state actors. Subsequent judgments reinforced this trend of holding the state accountable despite the traditional doctrines of sovereign immunity. In Saheli v. Commissioner of Police, where a young boy died due to police brutality, the Supreme Court ordered the state to pay compensation, firmly stating that the principle of sovereign immunity does not apply to cases of public law where fundamental rights are violated by the police or other state instrumentalities. Similarly, in Nilabati Behera v. State of Orissa, the Supreme Court clarified that the defense of sovereign immunity is not available in a proceeding under Article 32 or Article 226 of the Constitution for the enforcement of fundamental rights, and the principle of strict liability applies to the state when custodial violence or illegal state action results in death or injury. Through these rulings, the courts effectively bypassed the Kasturilal limitation by shifting the remedy from ordinary civil law, where sovereign immunity was a valid defense, to constitutional law, where it is barred. In modern Indian jurisprudence, sovereign immunity is no longer a blanket shield for the government. While it may still technically apply in certain traditional civil suits where a plaintiff tries to sue the state purely under the law of torts for negligence in the discharge of strictly sovereign functions like defense or diplomacy, its practical application has drastically shrunk. Furthermore, legislative changes and the evolution of administrative law have placed higher standards of accountability on public authorities. The Law Commission of India has also recommended abolishing the doctrine of sovereign immunity altogether through legislation, pointing out that it is an anachronism in a democratic republic founded on the rule of law and citizens rights. Until such comprehensive legislation is enacted, Indian courts continue to use constitutional remedies to ensure that the state and its servants cannot hide behind sovereign immunity when they cause injury, loss, or death to citizens through wrongful actions, illegal detentions, or negligence in public duties.
