New Delhi: Supreme Court said at 5 am on Thursday morning that Yakub Memon will hang at 7am. Memon’s hanging will bring some closure to the victims of the Mumbai 1993 bomb attacks. Earlier, Yakub Memon’s lawyers tried a last minute bid to avert his death sentence on Thursday morning. A midnight drama ensued and a special hearing was held in the wee hours of the morning at the Supreme Court of India which was underway. According to his lawyers they filed a final humanatarian plea stating that the hanging should not happen on the day former President APJ Abdul Kalam’s funeral who was against death penalty.
Earlier, President Pranab Mukherjee on Wednesday rejected the mercy plea of Yakub Abdul Razak Memon, the lone death row convict in 1993 Mumbai blasts case, dashing the hope he might have had of escaping the gallows. He will be executed on Thursday morning at 7 am on his 54th birthday.Â
This was the second mercy petition filed by Memon. The first one was also rejected by the President.
The President, who acts on the aid and advice of the Council of Ministers, had referred the petition to the Home Ministry earlier in the day.
Also, Memon’s lawyer moved Supreme Court challenging Maharastra Governor’s decision to reject the mercy plea. Earlier in the day, his mercy petition was rejected by Maharashtra Governor Chennamaneni Vidyasagar Rao soon after a three-member bench of the Supreme Court threw out his plea seeking a reconsideration of his death sentence.
The Maharashtra government is prepping the final plans to execute Memon on Thursday. Meanwhile, security has been beefed up in the city to stop untoward incidents.
Ending the suspense and uncertainty over the fate of Memon, who was held guilty in the terror case, the apex court said his last legal remedy by way of curative petition was “correctly” dismissed by the three senior-most judges.
A three-judge bench headed by Justice Dipak Misra held that his second mercy petition will not come in way of his execution tomorrow when he turns 53 as he did not challenge the rejection of his first mercy petition by the President last year.
While clearing the decks by holding that the condemned prisoner has availed all legal remedies, the bench, also comprising Justices Prafulla Chandra Pant and Amitava Roy, rejected the plea that proper procedure was not followed in issuance of death warrant by TADA Court on April 30 for his execution on July 30.
Further, the bench differed with his counsel that mandatory 14 days notice was not given by Maharashtra Government in communicating to him about his date of execution.
“Issuance of death warrant is in order. We do not find any kind of legal fallacy.
In view of that, we conclude that the curative petition was decided by three senior-most judges of this court cannot be faulted.
The issue of death warrant by TADA court on April 30 for the execution of death sentence on July 30 cannot be faulted.
In the result writ petition sans merit and stands dismissed,” the bench said after a day-long hearing.
While rejecting the contention that the death warrant was wrongly issued and without hearing Memon, the bench noted the sequence of event to demonstrate that he did not challenged the rejection of his first mercy petition by the President.
“After first mercy petition was rejected, he did not challenge it. On July 22, 2015, he filed another mercy petition. Whether he was entitled for such second mercy petition or not during the tendency of the curative petition.
“How the mercy petition has to be dealt we are not inclined to go,” the bench said.
Memon was the only one of 11 people convicted for the 1993 attacks to have his death sentence upheld on appeal. His brother, “Tiger” Memon, and mafia don Dawood Ibrahim, the main masterminds behind the attack, remain missing.