'Kulbhushan Jadhav has no right to appeal': Pakistan defence ministry tells SC

NEW DELHI: Pakistan defence ministry has told its Supreme Court that "Indian spy" Kulbhushan Jadhav had no "right to appeal" but only had the facility of consular access, Dawn reported.

This came in response to earlier claims that, while the right to appeal had been granted to the Indian national, similar rights were not being afforded to Pakistani citizens convicted by military courts for their alleged roles in the May 9, 2023 violence.

In 2019, before the International Court of Justice in The Hague, it was argued that Pakistan had violated Article 36 of the 1963 Vienna Convention on Consular Relations by denying consular access to foreign nationals accused of espionage, the counsel informed the seven-judge Constitutional Bench. Thus, the nation enacted the rule in accordance with ICJ.

Jadhav, a former Navy officer who had taken early retirement and was running a business in Chabahar, Iran, was allegedly abducted and detained in Pakistan on fabricated charges. He was apprehended in the Chaman region near the Pakistan-Afghanistan border on March 3, 2016.

A year later, in April 2017, a Pakistani military court sentenced him to death, accusing him of espionage and sabotage. India strongly denounced the ruling, calling it a case of premeditated murder. The International Court of Justice intervened by halting the execution and directed Pakistan to review the trial process and grant India consular access.