Kulbhushan Jadhav case: Public hearings at ICJ today, India confident of trumping Pakistan

The International Court of Justice (ICJ) will on Monday hold public hearings in the Kulbhshan Jadhav case which has brought India and Pakistan face-to-face at ICJ after 18 years. After Pakistani military court announced death sentence for Jadhav, accusing him of spying for India's Research And Analysis Wing (RAW), India approached ICJ terming the move as "egregious violations of the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations".

Ahead of today's hearing, Attorney General of India Mukul Rohatgi expressed confidence in India's case and said "it is clear Pakistan violated all rules, both in trial and human rights", as reported by ANI.

The public hearings will be held at the Great Hall of Justice in Peace Palace at The Hague in Netherlands. Both the countries will present their case. The Indian officials, who will be arguing the case, are expected to raise the point that India was denied consular access to Jadhav even after repeated requests and also details related to his case were not shared with the Indian authorities as well.

India will make oral observations from 10 am to 11:30 am local time followed by Pakistan which will get to make oral observations from 3 pm to 4:30 pm local time. "The hearings will be streamed live and on demand (VOD) on the Court's website (www.icj-cij.org/multimedia), as well as on UN Web TV, the United Nations online television channel," states a notification issued by ICJ on May 10.

On May 9, a day after India moved a petition in ICJ, the court had asked Pakistan to hold off Jadhav's death sentence until the hearings in the case. Senior lawyer Harish Salve is arguing the case for India at the ICJ.

Jadhav was apprehended by Pakistani officials on March 3, 2016. The Pakistani Army claimed that he was arrested in Saravan but conflicting claims were made by Baloch leader Sarfaraz Bugti who said that Jadhav was picked up from Chaman in Balochistan. Meanwhile, India has so far maintained that Jadhav was kidnapped by Pakistani officials from Iran.

To corroborate its claims, Pakistan released a video of Jadhav confessing to his 'crimes' in the same month. Questioning the authenticity of the video, India accused Pakistan of using torture to force Jadhav into accepting to have spied for RAW in Pakistan.