Pakistan dismisses any option to amend any local laws for Kulbhushan Jadhav

Islamabad, Sep 10: Pakistan on Thursday dismissed any option to amend local laws on India's demand to allow its lawyers to fight the case of Indian national Kulbhushan Jadhav in Pakistani courts.

"Pakistan will never accept any unreasonable demand by India on Jadhav's case," Foreign Office Spokesperson Zahid Hafeez Chaudhri saidat a weekly press briefing.

The spokesperson said there was no other option for India but to "cooperate with Pakistani courts", which only permitted appearance of locally registered lawyers before the bench.

India has been demanding "unimpeded" consular access to Jadhav as mandated by the International Court of Justice (ICJ).

Recently, the Islamabad High Court named three senior lawyers as amici curiae in the case of Jadhav and ordered the Pakistan government to give "another chance" to India to appoint a counsel for the death-row prisoner.

In 2017, India approached the ICJ against Pakistan for denial of consular access to Jadhav and challenging the death sentence.

The Hague-based ICJ ruled in July 2019 that Pakistan must undertake an "effective review and reconsideration" of the conviction and sentence of Jadhav and also to grant consular access to India without further delay.

Last month, India accused Pakistan of adopting a "farcical" approach in denying available legal remedies to Jadhav against his death sentence in contravention of the ICJ order.

The strong reaction had come after Pakistan did not provide documents relating to Jadhav''s case to India so that it could file a review petition in the court against the death sentence.

India had also accused Pakistan of blocking all the avenues for an effective remedy available in the case.

Fifty-year-old retired Indian Navy officer Jadhav was sentenced to death by a Pakistani military court on charges of espionage and terrorism in April 2017.