New Delhi, Aug 14: Reiterating that Indus Waters Treaty (IWT) stands in abeyance, India on Thursday rejected the recent award of The Hague-based Permanent Court of Arbitration (PCA) asserting that its rulings are beyond jurisdiction, lack legal basis and hold no significance to India's rightful use of waters.

"India has never accepted the legality, legitimacy, or competence of the so-called Court of Arbitration. Its pronouncements are therefore without jurisdiction, devoid of legal standing, and have no bearing on India's rights of utilisation of waters. India also categorically rejects Pakistan's selective and misleading references to the so-called award," said the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal while addressing a regular press briefing in New Delhi on Thursday.

"As reiterated earlier, the Indus Waters Treaty stands in abeyance by a sovereign decision of the Government of India, taken in response to Pakistan's continued sponsorship of cross-border terrorism, including the barbaric Pahalgam attack," he added.

The MEA had announced that India has never recognised the existence in law of the so-called Court of Arbitration, and the country's position has all along been that the constitution of this so-called arbitral body is in itself a serious breach of the IWT. Consequently any proceedings before this forum and any award or decision taken by it are also for that reason illegal and per se void, New Delhi has maintained.

Exercising its rights as a sovereign nation under international law, India has placed the IWT in abeyance until Pakistan credibly and irrevocably abjures its support for cross-border terrorism.

According to the MEA, until the treaty is in abeyance, India is no longer bound to perform any of its obligations. It also stressed that no Court of Arbitration, "much less this illegally constituted arbitral body which has no existence in the eyes of law", has the jurisdiction to examine the legality of India’s actions in the exercise of its rights as a sovereign.

"Today, the illegal Court of Arbitration, purportedly constituted under the Indus Waters Treaty 1960, albeit in brazen violation of it, has issued what it characterizes as a ‘supplemental award’ on its competence concerning the Kishenganga and Ratle hydroelectric projects in the Indian Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir. India, therefore, categorically rejects the so-called supplemental award as it has rejected all prior pronouncements of the body," the MEA stated after the Court of Arbitration issued a supplementary award in June.

"This latest charade at Pakistan's behest is yet another desperate attempt by it to escape accountability for its role as the global epicentre 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 Ministry had added.

(IANS)

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