Kulbhushan Yadav: ICJ rules against Pakistan, favours Indian stay order against execution
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The Hague, Netherlands: The International Court of Justice has ruled against Pakistan. The ICJ has given a stay order against the execution of the Indian RAW agent till the final verdict of the case.
ICJ orders Pakistan not to execute Kulbhushan Yadav till final decision.
The UN’s top cour delivered its verdict on Indian appeal seeking to stop Pakistan from carrying out death sentence imposed on RAW spy Kulbhushan Sudhir Jadhav.
The International Court of Justice conducted an emergency hearing on Monday days after India lodged its case, appealing the court to order Islamabad to suspend its Jadhav’s execution.
Jadhav was arrested last year and sentenced to death by Pakistan’s military court of espionage and sabotage activities against Pakistan.
Shortly after his arrest, Pakistan Army released a video in which he was shown admitting involvement in spying for Indian agency RAW.
The president of the UN court, Ronny Abraham, read out the decision.
The case — a rare foray for the two nations into the international courts — has highlighted the recent sharp upsurge in tensions between the nuclear-armed rivals.
India has denied Jadhav was a spy, and accused Pakistan of “egregious violations of the Vienna convention” by denying him access to legal counsel and consular visits, and refusing to reveal the charge sheet against him.
It wants the ICJ to decide whether Pakistan has broken the convention and international human rights law.
But in the meantime as the court considers whether to take up India’s case, New Delhi asked the tribunal to order a stay of execution until the end of the legal battle.
Indian lawyer Deepak Mittal told the tribunal that Jadhav was “an innocent Indian national, who, incarcerated in Pakistan for more than a year on concocted charges.
But Pakistani representatives told the court that Jadhav has confessed to having been sent by India to wage terror on the innocent civilians and infrastructure of Pakistan.
The ICJ was set up in 1945 to rule on disputes between nations in accordance with international law.
The last time India and Pakistan took a dispute to the ICJ was in 1999 when Islamabad protested against the downing of a Pakistani navy plane that killed 16 people.
In that case, the tribunal decided it was not competent to rule in the dispute and closed the case.
