ICJ verdict on Jadhav: Urgency established, says Indian judge on bench

NEW DELHI: In a separate declaration, Indian judge Dalveer Bhandari, while concurring with the main ICJ ruling, said that so long as there was a risk of Kulbhushan Jadhav being executed before the final disposal of the case, there was going to be urgency in the matter. The court noted that Pakistan had given no assurance that Jadhav would not be executed before it rendered its final decision.
India’s case was solely built around the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations’ optional protocol which calls for compulsory jurisdiction of ICJ in all disputes arising out of interpretation or application of VCCR. The court, in that regard, noted that India’s allegations against Pakistan’s conduct on the issue appeared “capable of falling" under the scope of the VCCR.
Pakistan did not allow India consular access to Jadhav despite 16 requests. The court said the rights invoked by India, in terms of access to Jadhav and the obligations of Pakistan to inform Jadhav of his rights as recognised in Article 36 (1) of VCCR, seemed “plausible”.
In his declaration, Bhandari observed that this was a case in which it regrettably appeared that the basic human rights of Jadhav had been violated by not allowing India to have consular access to him after his arrest and during the pendency of the criminal proceedings against him in Pakistan.
Bhandari noted that despite 13 notes verbales sent by India to Pakistan, Pakistan had not communicated to India either the charges against Jadhav, or the documents of the proceedings against him.
He noted that India had only claimed violation of VCCR and did not rely on the bilateral agreement for consular access. As reported by TOI earlier, one reason why it was futile for Pakistan to cite the agreement was that it had not yet been registered with the UN Secretariat, preventing it from being cited before any organ of UN, a fact noted by Bhandari in his declaration.