ICJ snubs Pakistan’s request to adjourn Kulbhushan case

The International Court of Justice on Tuesday refused to entertain Pakistan’s request to adjourn the hearing in the case of Kulbhushan Jadhav to appoint a new ad-hoc judge.

The four-day hearing in the Jadhav case opened on Monday at the ICJ headquarters in The Hague.

Pakistan asked the judge to adjourn the case, citing the illness of its ad-hoc judge. However, the world court declined Pakistan’s plea and asked it to continue argument in the absence of the ad-hoc judge.

Tassaduq Hussain Jillani, the ad-hoc judge for Pakistan in the ICJ suffered a cardiac attack ahead of the hearing. 48-year-old Jadhav, a retired Indian Navy officer, was sentenced to death by a Pakistani military court on charges of espionage and terrorism in April 2017.

India moved the ICJ against the verdict the same year. On the first day of the hearing, India urged the ICJ to annul Jadhav’s death sentence and order his immediate release. It said that the verdict by a Pakistani military court was based on a ‘farcical case’ and that it hopelessly fails to satisfy even the minimum standards of due process.