New Delhi, June 27: India has rejected Arbitration Court’s ruling on Jammu and Kashmir hydroelectric projects.The Court that issued a `supplemental award’ on its competence concerning the Kishenganga and Ratle hydroelectric projects.
The dams are being built on the Indus River system, and the development came after India had paused the Indus Waters Treaty following the Pahalgam terror attack in April.
A statement released by the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) said that India never recognised the existence in law of the so-called Court of Arbitration and that the body is in itself a violation of the Indus Waters Treaty, a key water-sharing agreement between India and Pakistan, which was brokered by the World Bank.
“Today, the illegal Court of Arbitration, purportedly constituted under the Indus Waters Treaty 1960, albeit in brazen violation of it, has issued what it characterises as a ‘supplemental award’ on its competence concerning the Kishenganga and Ratle hydroelectric projects in the Indian Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir,” it said.
Citing its move to pause the Indus Waters Treaty following the Pahalgam attack, which killed 26 people, India said it was no longer bound to perform any of its obligations under the agreement.
“Following the Pahalgam terrorist attack, India has, in exercise of its rights as a sovereign nation under international law, placed the Indus Waters Treaty in abeyance until Pakistan credibly and irrevocably abjures its support for cross-border terrorism. Until such time that the treaty is in abeyance, India is no longer bound to perform any of its obligations under the treaty,” the MEA statement said.
“No Court of Arbitration, much less this illegally constituted arbitral body which has no existence in the eye of the law, has the jurisdiction to examine the legality of India’s actions in the exercise of its rights as a sovereign,” it added.
India said that the move was a “latest charade” at Pakistan’s behest and stressed it was a desperate attempt by Islamabad to escape accountability for its role as the global epicentre of terrorism.
“This latest charade at Pakistan’s behest is yet another desperate attempt by it to escape accountability for its role as the global epicenter of terrorism. Pakistan’s resort to this fabricated arbitration mechanism is consistent with its decades-long pattern of deception and manipulation of international forums,” the statement read.
“India, therefore, categorically rejects this so-called supplemental award as it has rejected all prior pronouncements of this body,” it further said.