‘Could help reduce complaints of violence by the foreign navy’

The Madras High Court on Monday questioned why the Centre as well as the State government should not allot ₹11.2 crore for supplying transponders, which cost ₹8,000 each, for installation in all 14,000 fishing boats that venture into the Palk Bay region regularly, in order to track the movement of the vessels and make sure that they do not cross the International Maritime Boundary Line (IMBL).

Justices S. Manikumar and Subramonium Prasad raised the question during the hearing of a public interest litigation petition filed by Fishermen Care, a non-governmental organisation represented by its president L.T.A. Peter Rayan. The NGO had sought a direction to the Centre to refer incidents of alleged violence perpetrated by Sri Lankan Navy against Indian fishermen to the International Court of Justice (ICJ).

In a report to the court, the Union Ministry of External Affairs said the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) was requested to develop transponders for tracking movements of fishing vessels. Accordingly, ISRO and the Indian Navy had installed a few transponders on fishing vessels on trial basis. On successful implementation of the project, such transponders would be installed in more number of boats, it added.

The Ministry also brought it to the notice of the court that the State government had already sent a list of 1,215 boats to ISRO for fitting the transponders. However, the judges wondered why such a small list had been forwarded when around 11,000 country boats and 3,000 mechanised boats regularly fish in the Palk Bay region. They said installing transponders in all those boats might help in reducing complaints of violence by the foreign Navy.

Since they were told that joint patrolling by the Coast Guard as well as the Navy of both the countries was under way at the IMBL and that a hotline had also been established between them for quick communication, the judges directed a responsible officer from the Coast Guard to be present in the court on Wednesday to assist the court in knowing as to how many of its vessels were stationed on the IMBL to monitor the movement of fishing boats.