New Delhi, August 21
Pakistan has moved the Court of Arbitration asking it to direct India to stop work at the 330-MW Kishenganga hydropower project in Jammu and Kashmir. Even as the two countries are fighting a legal battle in a court of arbitration, Pakistan has filed a petition in the court seeking a direction to make India hold the project till the case is settled by the court, sources in the government said.

The project is likely to be completed by 2015. “It is a normal procedure adopted during such cases,” a senior official said. A seven-judge Bench has started arbitration proceedings from January 14 this year in the Hague.

Incidentally, this is the first case referred for international arbitration under the provisions of the Indus Water Treaty, 1960.

Earlier, India and Pakistan had sought the services of a neutral expert appointed by the World Bank to resolve their differences over the Baglihar Dam under construction on the Chenab. The Bench - comprising Justice Stephen M Schwebel (head), Justice Sir Franklin Beman, Prof Howard S Wheater, Justice Bruno Simma, Jan Paulsson, Justice Peter Tomka and Lucius Caflisch - has three neutral umpires, including the head of the Bench, and four arbitrators nominated by India and Pakistan.

Noted lawyer and expert on international law Shankar Das and legal luminary Fali S Nariman, both of whom had argued India’s case in the Baglihar Dam issue, are representing India. — PTI