India asks Pakistan to address shortcomings in Kulbhushan Jadhav Bill

The MEA asked Pakistan to comply with the ICJ’s judgment in letter and spirit

India on Thursday asked Pakistan to address shortcomings in the new Bill recently passed by its National Assembly to implement the judgment 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.

New Delhi pointed out that the International Court of Justice (Review and Reconsideration) Bill, 2020, which Prime Minister Imran Khan’s Government in Islamabad got passed by the National Assembly of Pakistan, would set the stage for 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,” Arindam Bagchi, the official spokesperson of the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA), said in New Delhi. “Not only this, it further invites the municipal court to sit in appeal, as it were, over the judgment of the International Court of Justice (ICJ)”.

New Delhi called upon the Khan Government in Islamabad to take appropriate steps to address the shortcomings in the Bill and to comply with the ICJ’s judgment in letter and spirit.

Read | Pakistan's National Assembly passes bill to give right of appeal to Kulbhushan Jadhav

The International Court of Justice (Review and Reconsideration) Bill, 2020 seeks to specifically grant the former Indian Navy officer incarcerated in Pakistan the right of appeal against the death sentence awarded to him by a military court of Pakistan in April 2017.

The Bill was among the 21 proposed legislation Khan Government got passed by the National Assembly on Thursday, amid a ruckus and boycott by the protesting MPs of the Pakistan Muslim League – Nawaz and Pakistan People’s Party.

Jadhav has been in the custody of the Pakistan Army at least since March 2016. He was accused and convicted of being involved in espionage and sabotage in Pakistan on behalf of an external intelligence agency of India. A military tribunal awarded him a death sentence in April 2017. New Delhi moved the International Court of Justice (ICJ), which 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 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.

To implement the ICJ judgment, Pakistan on May 20 last year promulgated an ordinance called the “International Court of Justice Review and Reconsideration Ordinance 2020”.