Pak to file second reply to India on Jadhav case at int’l court on July 17
ISLAMABAD: On July 17, Pakistan will file a second counter-memorial or response in the International Court of Justice in the case of Indian national Kulbhushan Jadhav, who was sentenced to death by a military court in Pakistan after being arrested by security agencies in 2016.
On January 23, the ICJ had set a time frame for India and Pakistan to file another round of “memorials” or written submissions in the case. Pakistan’s top attorney Khawar Qureshi has briefed caretaker Prime Minister Nasirul Mulk about the issue last week in a meeting. The attorney general of Pakistan, Khalid Javed Khan, and other senior officials also attended the meeting.
On April 17, India had submit- ted its second memorial on Jadhav’s case to the ICJ. India had approached the court in The Hague to stay Jadhav’s execution. A 10-member bench of the ICJ on May 18 had restrained Pakistan from executing Jadhav till adjudication of the case.
After the submission of Pakistan’s second counter-memorial, the ICJ will fix a date for hearing the matter, which is likely to be sometime next year. Officials have said there is little chance of Jadhav’s case being heard this year.
The hearing of other matters has already been fixed till MarchApril next year, and therefore, Jadhav’s case is expected to be listed only by summer next year.
Pakistan claims that its security forces arrested Kulbhsuhan Jadhav from restive Balochistan province on March 3, 2016 after he reportedly entered from Iran.
However, India has rejected Pakistan’s contention that Jadhav was involved in espionage and subversive activities and said that he was kidnapped by Pakistani intelligence operatives from the Iranian port of Chabahar, where he was running a business.
Jadhav’s sentencing had evoked a sharp reaction in India. India had approached the ICJ for “egregious” violation of the provisions of the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations, 1963, by Pakistan in Jadhav’s case.
In its written pleadings, India had accused Pakistan of violating the Vienna Convention by not giving consular access to Jadhav arguing that the convention did not say that such access would not be available to an individual arrested on espionage charges.
While submitting its first memorial in the ICJ on December 13 last year, Pakistan had rejected India’s position about not being provided consular access to Jadhav saying that such access under the Vienna Convention is not possible for spies.
India has been maintaining that the trial of Jadhav by a military court in Pakistan was “farcical”.