New Delhi: In a major diplomatic win for India at the ICJ, the world court put the death sentence to Jadhav on hold and asked Pakistan for a review.
The court also rapped Pakistan for violation of the Vienna Convention on consular relations. It asked Pakistan to provide consular access for Jadhav to India.
Last week, Pakistan Foreign Office spokesperson Muhammad Faisal had said that while his country cannot predict the court’s decision, it has contested the case to best of its abilities.
Background
Pakistan claims that its security forces had arrested Jadhav from Balochistan province on March 3, 2016, after he entered the country from Iran. While, India maintains that he was kidnapped from Iran, where he had held business interests after retiring from the Navy.
What happened in ICJ so far?
The 10-member bench of the ICJ has restrained Pakistan from executing Kulbhushan Jadhav until the conclusion of the case.
A month after Jadhav was sentenced to death in April 2017, India dragged Pakistan to the ICJ on charges of denying consular access to the 49-year-old retired Navy officer and orchestrating a ‘farcical trial’ in order to nail him. Pakistan defended its action of denying consular access to Kulbhushan Jadhav by terming it as a ploy by the Indian government to procure information gathered by its ‘spy’.
Meanwhile, the ICJ had held a four-day public hearing in the high-profile case in February amid heightened tensions between India and Pakistan over the death of 40 CRPF soldiers in the Pulwama terror attack.
Advocate Harish Salve, who represented India in the case, questioned the functioning of Pakistan’s notorious military courts and urged the ICJ to annul the death sentence awarded to Jadhav.
Despite not granting consular access to Jadhav, on December 25th, 2017, Pakistan had permitted a meeting with his wife and mother in Islamabad.