At 5 am, Supreme Court rejected petition to put off hanging

 

Chief Justice of India Justice HL Dattu had formed the Bench, comprising Justices Dipak Misra, Prafulla C Pant and Amitava Roy, around midnight to hear Yakub's plea after the President rejected his mercy petition. The Bench, which had turned down a similar plea by Yakub on Wednesday, began the special hearing around 3.20 am.

 

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The special hearing was necessitated after a group of lawyers, led by Prashant Bhushan, yet again challenged Yakub's hanging scheduled for July 30. The petition was moved at the residence of CJI Dattu.

 

Speaking to The Tribune outside the Krishna Menon Marg residence of the CJI, Prashant Bhushan said: "We have petitioned the Chief Justice, seeking 14-day gap between rejection of his mercy plea by the President and his hanging." In Shatrughan Chauhan versus Union of India case of 2014, the Supreme Court had ruled that 14-day gap was needed to hang a person after the rejection of his mercy plea by the President, Bhushan said.

 

The lawyers moved the SC after President Pranab Mukherjee rejected the second mercy petition of Yakub on Wednesday.

 

Before that, the Supreme Court had ruled that Yakub's death warrants issued by the TADA court and the rejection of his curative petition by the apex court were in order. The Mumbai blasts had left 257 persons dead and more than 700 injured in 1993.

 

The CJI had set up the Bench on Tuesday, hours after a split verdict delivered by a Bench comprising Justices Anil R Dave and Kurian Joseph on Memon's plea. 

 

While Justice Dave had dismissed his petition, Justice Joseph stayed the death warrant finding fault with the composition of the Bench that rejected Memon's curative petition last week (July 21) though that point was not raised in the writ petition.

 

Minutes after SC's Wednesday ruling, Maharashtra Governor C Vidyasagar Rao also rejected Memon's mercy plea, removing the executive hurdle in the way of executing the 53-year-old chartered accountant.

 

The apex court delivered its verdict after hearing day-long arguments by Attorney General Mukul Rohatgi for the Maharashtra Government and senior advocates Raju Ramachandran, TR Andhyarujina and Anand Grover - all for Memon.

 

In the unanimous judgment, the three SC Judges held that Memon had no right to take advantage of the fact that the TADA (Terrorists and Disruptive Activities Prevention Act) judge had issued the warrant suo motu before he could file the curative petition as he had anyway availed of this remedy now.

 

The convict had availed of and exhausted all legal and other remedies by filing an appeal and review and curative petitions in the SC as well as sending mercy pleas to the President and the Maharashtra Governor. He was unsuccessful in all this, it noted.

 

The Bench said it had nothing to do with the fresh mercy pleas sent to the Governor or the President as these were in the domain of the executive, not judiciary.

 

The SC held there was no violation of any rule in the constitution of the Bench comprising the three senior-most judges - CJI Dattu and Justices TS Thakur and Dave - for considering Memon's curative petition. The curative plea was meant to assail the SC verdict on his appeal, not on review petition, and, as such, there was no need for involving the review petition judges in the adjudication on the curative plea, it ruled while disagreeing with Justice Joseph and accepting Rohatgi's submission.

 

Since the judges — Justices P Sathasivam and BS Chauhan — who had delivered the 2013 verdict on the appeals by the convicts had already retired, there was no question of their being part of the curative Bench, it explained.

 

The Bench also accepted Rohatgi's contention that the 14-day notice period for the execution started from the day the President had rejected the mercy plea on April 11, 2014, not from the day the death warrant was issued. Nevertheless, he was intimated about the death warrant on July 13 (17 days prior to the slated hanging), he pleaded.

 

In the March 21, 2013, verdict on appeals by the convicts in the case, the SC had upheld the death sentence awarded to "the mastermind" Memon, brother of absconding accused Tiger Memon, but commuted the capital punishment awarded to 10 others, citing several reasons, including the fact that they have been in jail for 20 years.

 

The apex court had then ruled that Memon, accused number one, had a "very deep involvement in the organisation and conduct of serial bomb blasts".

 

Memon was responsible for making all arrangements for the terror strike by sending other accused to Pakistan for training in handling arms and ammunition and making bombs and for hatching the conspiracy in India, Dubai and Pakistan.