New Delhi:Less than an hour before she was rushed to Delhi’s AIIMS in a critical condition, former external affairs minister Sushma Swaraj had asked Harish Salve, the lawyer who represented India at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in the case pertaining to Kulbhushan Jadhav, to meet her on Wednesday to collect his fee of Re 1.
Recalling his “emotional conversation” with Swaraj, the former solicitor general told Times Now: “I spoke to her at 8:50 pm. It was a very emotional conversation…. She said, ‘you have to come and meet me. I have to give you your one rupee for the case which you won’. I said, ‘of course, I have to come collect that precious fee’. She said, ‘come and meet me tomorrow at 6 o’clock’,” Salve said.
Swaraj, former external affairs minister and senior BJP leader, passed away on Tuesday night. She was 67. The senior BJP leader was brought to AIIMS around 9:30pm and was straight away taken to the emergency ward. AIIMS doctors said she died of a cardiac arrest.
Last month, the International Court of Justice for Pakistan to grant former Indian naval officer Kulbhushan Jadhav consular access, a right he had been denied so far. It also stated that Pakistan had violated the Vienna Convention by doing so, and directed it to review the death sentence ordered by a military court at a closed trial.
Swaraj had welcomed the International Court of Justice’s verdict, calling it “a great victory” for India.