India rejects Arbitration Court's IWT ruling as baseless

New Delhi: 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," ministry of external affairs (MEA) spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal said at a press meet here.

"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.

Jaiswal warned Pakistan not to continue with its "hateful" rhetoric against New Delhi saying any "misadventure" will have "painful consequences".

Jaiswal said, "We have seen reports regarding a continuing pattern of reckless, war-mongering and hateful comments from Pakistani leadership against India. It is a well-known modus-operandi of the Pakistani leadership to whip up anti-India rhetoric time and again to hide their own failures. Pakistan would be well-advised to temper its rhetoric as any misadventure will have painful consequences as was demonstrated recently."

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 by it are also for that reason illegal and per se void, New Delhi said.