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‘Kulbhushan Jadhav was allowed appeal because..’: Pakistan govt informs its Supreme Court
Pakistan has alleged that Kulbhushan Jadhav was an operative working for India's external spy agency, the Research and Analysis Wing (R&AW)
The Pakistan government informed the country's Supreme Court on Wednesday that Kulbhushan Jadhav, who is on death sentence over charges of espionage, was allowed the right to appeal his sentence not due to a 2019 verdict from the International Court of Justice (ICJ), the Dawn reported.
The submissions came during a hearing in Pakistan's top court that claimed that right to appeal was provided to Kulbhushan Jadhav but the same was being denied to Pakistani citizens convicted by the military for their alleged involvement in May 9, 2023, violence case.
Defence ministry lawyer Khawaja Haris Ahmed informed the apex court that the Hauge-based ICJ verdict only addressed the issue of India's right of consular access to Jadhav, the report added.
Sentencing and India's appeal
Kulbhushan Jadhav was arrested in March 2016 reportedly from Balochistan. Pakistan has alleged that he was an operative working for India's external spy agency, the Research and Analysis Wing (R&AW) and was involved in acts of terrorism in their country. He was slapped with charges of spying and sentenced to death the following year.
India rejected the charges levelled against Kulbhushan Jadhav and said that he was a former navy officer kidnapped by Pakistani operatives from the Iranian port of Chabahar, where he was running a business. New Delhi also rejected his trial by Pakistan courts as “farcical.”
The Union government approached the ICJ after Jadhav was sentenced to death, following which the international court stayed Jadhav’s execution in 2018.
The ICJ said in its judgement that “Pakistan is under an obligation to provide, by means of its own choosing, effective review and reconsideration of the conviction and sentence of Mr Jadhav” in view of the violation of his rights under the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations. The order also said that Jadhav's execution should remain suspended until he is provided with effective means to appeal his sentencing.
Following the ICJ's verdict, Pakistani government passed the International Court of Justice (Review and Re-consideration) Act of 2021 in November that year, to allow for Jadhav’s right to appeal against the death sentence.
India has since maintained that the law does not create a machinery to facilitate effective review and reconsideration of Jadhav’s case and has asked Islamabad to address its shortcomings.
