Pakistan Rejects Indian Supreme Court’s Verdict on Occupied Kashmir

Pakistan on Monday categorically rejected the judgement announced by the Supreme Court of India on the status of Indian Illegally Occupied Jammu and Kashmir (IIOJK).

Pakistan, in a statement issued by Ministry of Foreign Affairs and later in a press conference by Foreign Minister Jalil Abbas Jilani, made it clear that Jammu and Kashmir is an internationally-recognized dispute, which remains on the agenda of the UN Security Council for over seven decades and the final disposition of Jammu and Kashmir is to be made in accordance with the relevant United Nations Security Council Resolutions and as per aspirations of the Kashmiri people.

“India has no right to make unilateral decisions on the status of this disputed territory against the will of the Kashmiri people and Pakistan,” the MOFA statement said.

Pakistan maintained that it does not acknowledge the supremacy of the Indian Constitution over Jammu and Kashmir. Any process, subservient to the Indian Constitution, carries no legal significance. India cannot abdicate its international obligations on the pretext of domestic legislations and judicial verdicts. Its plans to annex IIOJK are bound to fail.

Foreign Minister Jalil Abbas Jilani said that the judicial endorsement of India’s unilateral and illegal actions of 5 August 2019 is a travesty of justice, based on distorted historical and legal arguments.

The Indian Supreme Court’s verdict fails to recognize the internationally-recognized disputed nature of the Jammu and Kashmir dispute. It further fails to cater to the aspirations of the Kashmiri people, who have already rejected India’s illegal and unilateral actions of 5 August 2019. The judgement is yet another manifestation of the pliant judiciary under India’s ruling dispensation.

Restoration of statehood, conduct of State Assembly elections or similar steps cannot serve as a substitute to the grant of the right to self-determination to the Kashmiri people.

The judgement cannot distract the international community’s attention from the gross and systematic human rights violations being perpetrated in IIOJK.

India’s unilateral and illegal measures since 5 August 2019 have been aimed at changing the demographic structure and political landscape of the IIOJK, in flagrant violation of international law and the relevant UN Security Council Resolutions, especially Resolution 122 (1957). They remain a matter of grave concern for Pakistan as their ultimate goal is to convert the Kashmiris into a disempowered community in their own land. These measures must be rescinded to create an environment for peace and dialogue.

Jilani also reiterated the country’s stance that it will continue to extend its full political, diplomatic and moral support to the people of IIOJK for realization of their inalienable right to self-determination.