Daily Times

A larger bench of Islamabad High Court (IHC) on Tuesday granted one more opportunity to India to appoint a lawyer for contesting an appeal of its spy Kulbhushan Jadhav, in line of implementation of the decision of International Court of Justice (ICJ).

Attorney General of Pakistan Khalid Javed, during the hearing, informed the bench that India had given no response to another offer of Pakistan to appoint a lawyer to pursue an appeal against the conviction of Jadhav. He produced the documents of government of Pakistan sent to India regarding the matter.

He said that this court had passed a detailed judgment on May 5, instructing the government to give another chance to neighboring country to hire a lawyer.

The bench observed that we have to implement the decision of the International Court of Justice but India is not interested in it.

The Chief Justice inquired what the court should do in such a situation. At this, the Attorney General said that in such a situation the federal government had requested this bench to appoint a lawyer for Kulbhushan Jadhav.

An appeal was filed in this court after the refusal of the Indian government and Commander Kulbhushan Jadhav. The government had requested the court to appoint a representative for Indian spy. To this, the bench asked whether the decision would be implemented with this practice?

The Attorney General, referring to various court decisions, said that according to the Vienna Convention, any foreign military prisoner has the right to a fair trial and review of the appeal. The court asked that it would go into Vienna Convention but how the government would handle it.

AGP Khalid Javed said the Pakistani government had come to this court in the context of the ICJ decision. Justice Amir Farooq asked how could we appoint a representative or file review petition for Indian spy. The attorney general said anyone had to file case in this regard.

Justice Miangul Hassan Aurangzeb said that the court had issued notices to respondents but Commander Kulbhushan Yadav and the Indian government had denied the offers. How a fair trial was possible after their denial, the court asked.

The attorney general said the federal government wanted full implementation of the ICJ verdict regarding review petition and reconsideration of the judgment.

The bench further questioned whether the court could take up review case like suo moto? The attorney general argued that their request was to appoint a lawyer who would file a review petition on behalf of Kulbhushan. We couldn’t allow any foreigner lawyer to appear before our courts, he said, adding that India could hire a lawyer from Pakistan.

The court instructed the government to send another reminder to Kulbhushan Jadhav and Indian government granting them one more chance for hiring representative. After this, hearing of the case was adjourned.