In the continuing war between diplomats and New York City over getting the former to pay their share of fines and taxes to the latter, the city won a battle yesterday, courtesy of the federal court at Manhattan.

Judge Richard Conway Casey issued a ruling that the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act, which protects foreign governments from being sued in American courts, does not protect them from efforts to reclaim evaded property taxes.

Mr. Casey’s decision went against the governments of India and Mongolia, which the city sued to claim more than $25 million in unpaid property taxes. Mongolia is in arrears to the tune of $2 million, having failed to pay property taxes since 1980 on portions of the six story building on the Upper East Side occupied by its mission to the United Nations. India declined to pay a total of $23 million in property taxes since 1991 on its 26-story U.N. mission building, at East 43rd Street near the world body’s Turtle Bay headquarters.

At issue were the parts of the buildings used as residences for consular and mission staff, one of the lawyers who argued the case on the city’s behalf, John Low-Beer, said.

Consular and U.N. mission offices are exempt from property taxes, Mr. Low-Beer said, as are residences housing consuls general and the heads of U.N. missions. Apartments for other staff – which, according to Mr. Low-Beer, consume approximately 20 of the 26 floors of the Indian edifice – are not.

A statement released by the city’s Law Department, which is litigating the cases, said the city “applauded the ruling.” In addition to the suits against India and Mongolia, New York is pursuing more than $20 million in back taxes from the government of the Philippines in a separate case, arguing that parts of the Manila government’s consular and U.N. mission building on Fifth Avenue are being used for commercial activity and are thus taxable.

According to the Law Department, portions of the Philippines building have been rented to the Philippines national bank, the national airline, and a Filipino restaurant.

“They argue that these are somehow government activities, and we say that they are commercial and taxable,” Mr. Low-Beer said. While the cases against India, Mongolia, and the Philippines are still pending, the city settled a similar property-tax lawsuit against the Republic of Turkey in April 2003, in which the Ankara government consented to pay $5.05 million in back taxes and interest.