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ICJ to hear Pak complaint against India from April 3

NEW YORK: The International Court of Justice will start public hearing in the case of the aerial incident of August 10, between Pakistan and India from April three.

According to the Spokesman of Secretary General of the United Nations, the International Court will continue the hearing for a week and will be dedicated to exclusively to the issue of the Court jurisdiction to deal with the dispute.

The Court previously wished to hold the hearings in march, but at the pressing request of the Parties (Pakistan and India), it has exceptionally agreed to open in April.

The hearing will be public and held in the Great Hall of Justice of the Peace Palace in the Hague, Netherlands and open for the press.

Pakistan has filed the case in the International Court of Justice against India in respect of a dispute concerning the destruction of its aircraft on August 10 last year. The aircraft, unarmed, belonged to Pakistan Navy was on a routine training mission with 16 personnel on board when flying over Pakistan airspace it was fired upon with air-to-air missiles by Indian air force planes, without warning, resulting in the death of all 16 personnel, mostly young naval trainees.

According to the Pakistani point of view, the wreckage of the aircraft was discovered two kms inside Pakistan territory. The Indian government tried its best to get some portions of the wreckage of the aircraft to prove that the plane was inside Indian territory.

Pakistan's government while filing complaint in the International Court of Justice maintained that keeping in view the evidences, shooting down of the aircraft is a violation of Article 2, paragraph 4, of the Charter of the United Nations: of the provisions of the agreement of April 6th, 1991 between Pakistan and India on Prevention of Air Space violations and of the obligations under customary international law not to use force against another State and not to violate sovereignty of another state.

Pakistan in the case has requested the Court to judge and declare that the act of India constitute breaches of these various obligations for which India bears exclusive legal responsibility and that India is under an obligation to make reparation to Pakistan for the loss of the aircraft and as compensation to the heirs of those killed.ÑPPI