India dismisses Pakistan's new law to implement ICJ judgment on Kulbhushan Jadhav

The MEA spokesperson said India has repeatedly called upon Pakistan to abide by the letter and spirit of the ICJ judgement

India on Thursday dismissed Pakistan's claim that the new law passed by its Parliament would help implement the judgement of the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in the case related to former Indian Navy officer Kulbhushan Jadhav, currently on a death row in the neighbouring country.

“Nothing could have been further from the truth,” Arindam Bagchi, the spokesperson of the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA), said in New Delhi. He pointed out that the new law, which Prime Minister Imran Khan's government in Islamabad got passed by Parliament of Pakistan, had not addressed the shortcomings that the ordinance promulgated by it earlier had. He said that neither the ordinance, nor did the new law “create the machinery for an effective review and reconsideration” of Kulbhushan Jadhav’s case as mandated by the judgement of the ICJ.

He said that Pakistan continued to deny India “unimpeded and unhindered consular access” to Jadhav and had failed to create an atmosphere in which a fair trial could be conducted. He noted that India had repeatedly called upon Pakistan to abide by the letter and spirit of the ICJ judgement.

Also Read | Pak's Parliament enacts law to give Kulbhushan Jadhav right to file review appeal against his conviction

New Delhi had earlier pointed out that the ordinance promulgated by Pakistan Government on May 20 last year would set the stage for the municipal courts of the neighbouring country to decide whether or not any “prejudice” had been caused to Kulbhushan Jadhav “on account of the failure to provide consular access”.

“This is clearly a breach of the basic tenet that municipal courts cannot be the arbiter of whether a State has fulfilled its obligations in international law,” the MEA spokesperson had stated in New Delhi on June 17 last, adding: “Not only this, it further invites the municipal court to sit in appeal, as it were, over the judgement of the International Court of Justice (ICJ)”.

Jadhav has been in the custody of Pakistan Army at least since March 2016. He had been accused and convicted of being involved in espionage and sabotage in Pakistan on behalf of an external intelligence agency of India. A military tribunal had awarded him a death sentence in April 2017. New Delhi had moved the ICJ, which had on July 17, 2019, concluded that Pakistan had violated Article 36 of the Vienna Convention of Consular Relations 1963 by not granting High Commission of India in Islamabad consular access to Jadhav. The ICJ had also ruled that the death sentence awarded to the former Indian Navy officer would remain suspended till the review of the conviction and the Pakistan Government would have to provide him a proper forum for appeal against the death sentence awarded to him.

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