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A United States federal court has cleared the way for summonses to be served on two of India's most senior security officials — National Security Adviser Ajit Doval and former intelligence chief Samant Goel — in a civil lawsuit alleging a plot to assassinate a Sikh separatist in New York. India rejected the case within a day, calling it frivolous. The ruling is procedural, not a verdict — but it has turned a two-year-old lawsuit into a fresh diplomatic flashpoint.
What the court actually ordered
In an order dated Monday, November 9, 2026, US District Judge Katherine Polk Failla of the Southern District of New York allowed Gurpatwant Singh Pannun to pursue service of summonses on Doval and Goel through Indian courts, under Article 19 of the Hague Convention on the Service Abroad of Judicial and Extrajudicial Documents. The judge directed Pannun to submit a proposed service packet by November 30, including copies of the summons, the proposed method of service, relevant provisions of Indian law, and records of earlier attempts to serve the two officials. Pannun had identified three possible courts in Delhi to receive the summonses: the Patiala House, Dwarka and Tis Hazari court complexes. The order does not mean Doval or Goel have already received summonses. Nor does it establish the allegations in the lawsuit or determine the officials' liability — the court will examine the materials before authorising any transmission.
The case behind the summons
Pannun, who leads the banned Sikhs for Justice group and is designated a terrorist in India, filed the civil lawsuit in September 2024. He alleges that Indian officials, including Doval and Goel, were involved in a 2023 plot to assassinate him in New York because of his advocacy for Khalistan, an independent Sikh state. The civil action is distinct from a parallel criminal case, in which Indian national Nikhil Gupta pleaded guilty in February 2026 to charges related to a conspiracy to hire a hitman to kill Pannun. US courts have scheduled Gupta's sentencing for November 20. Separately, the US State Department confirmed it had transmitted the complaint and summons against the Government of India to the Indian Embassy in Washington — a diplomatic note signed on September 30 and handed over on October 9, as part of its legal obligation under the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act. The State Department has not taken any position on the merits of the case.
India's response: "frivolous" and the wrong route
India's Ministry of External Affairs responded on Tuesday, November 10, rejecting what it called "fabricated and malicious" attacks on its high officials and "frivolous lawsuits". Spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal told a media briefing in New Delhi that any request to serve judicial documents in India "can only be routed through India's designated central authority, which is the Ministry of Law and Justice" — not through the embassy or the foreign ministry. The ministry indicated it was unconcerned by the development, and that the procedure for issuing any notice would require engaging the Law Ministry directly. The judge accepted Pannun's argument that India's own Code of Civil Procedure provides a mechanism for foreign summonses to be served through Indian courts — the legal hook on which the November 9 order rests.
What happens next
The immediate deadline is November 30, when Pannun must file his service packet. After that, the US court will decide whether to authorise transmission to the Delhi courts — and any service would still face India's position that the Law Ministry is the only valid channel, plus the immunity and jurisdiction defences that have not yet been tested. For now, the case remains what it has been since 2024: an unproven civil allegation, a guilty plea in a separate criminal case, and a procedural ruling that moves the paperwork one step closer to Delhi. Whether the summonses ever reach their targets will be decided in the coming weeks — and the answer will say as much about US-India diplomacy as about the law. For the wider diplomatic picture, see our reports on the midterm results that reshaped Washington and Europe joining the Ukraine peace talks in Abu Dhabi. And for why governments everywhere are suddenly telling citizens to prepare, see our explainer on the global stockpiling wave.