International Court of Justice requests Pak govt. for relief to Jadhav

TIL Desk/World/New Delhi/Islamabad/ The International Court of Justice on Tuesday stayed the execution of Indian national Kulbhushan Jadhav, who has been sentenced to death by a Pakistani military court on charges of “spying”.

The order by the Hague-based International Court of Justice (ICJ) came a day after India approached it against the death sentence handed down to Jadhav by Pakistan’s Field General Court Martial last month, official sources said.

India, in its appeal to the ICJ, accused Pakistan of “egregious” violations of the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations and asserted that Jadhav was kidnapped from Iran where he was involved in business activities after retiring from the Indian Navy but Pakistan claimed to have arrested him from Balochistan on March 3, 2016.

Reacting to the development, External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj said, “I have spoken to the mother of Kulbhushan Jadhav and told her about the order of President, ICJ under Art 74 Paragraph 4 of Rules of Court.” Swaraj said senior advocate Harish Salve was representing India before the ICJ in the Jadhav case.