India is firm: The Indus Waters Treaty's suspension remains in force and the Hague-based Permanent Court Of Arbitration "has no jurisdiction on India's sovereign decisions" after it urged New Delhi to uphold the water-sharing treaty with Pakistan.
The Court of Arbitration, the world's oldest permanent forum for international dispute, further said that India had no justification for ending or suspending the agreement and that the treaty between the two subcontinent arch-rivals remained fully in force.
Executed in September 1960, the Indus Waters Treaty was designed to govern the sharing of the Indus River system between India and Pakistan.
A day after the Pahalgam terror attack on April 22 last year that claimed 26 lives, India took a series of punitive measures against Pakistan, including suspending the water-sharing framework.
Reaffirming its long-standing principle that "blood and water cannot flow together," New Delhi has made it clear that treaty operations will remain suspended until Islamabad takes verifiable, irreversible action to dismantle cross-border terror networks operating from its soil.
"This so called Court was constituted by the World Bank in patent breach of the terms of the Treaty and India categorically rejects its so-called award, just as it has firmly rejected all prior pronouncements by this illegally constituted body," the Ministry of External Affairs said in a statement.
The statement further underscores that India has never recognised the existence in law of this "illegally-constituted body", and has "consistently maintained that the very establishment of this alleged arbitral body constitutes a grave violation of the Indus Waters Treaty".
Pakistan had sought arbitration over disagreements concerning the design of India's Kishenganga and Ratle hydroelectric projects on the western rivers of the Indus system.
India has objected to the arbitration process from the start.
New Delhi argues that disputes of this nature are technical and should be examined by a Neutral Expert, as provided for under the treaty. Allowing a Court of Arbitration to simultaneously examine the same issues, India says, goes against the dispute-resolution mechanism laid down in the agreement.
India maintained that it has never appeared before this body and "has refused to take any cognisance of its earlier pronouncements".
"This so-called Court of Arbitration has no jurisdiction whatsoever to pronounce on India's sovereign decisions. Its pronouncements, now or in the future, will have no effect on India's actions in connection with the projects being undertaken by India," it said, asserting "India's decision to hold the Indus Waters Treaty in abeyance remains in force".