NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court on Tuesday dismissed the curative petition filed by Yakub Abdul Razak Memon, convicted in the 1993 Mumbai serial blasts case, paving the way for his hanging on July 30.
Memon will be hanged at 7 A M on July 30, which also happens to be his birthday, in Nagpur Central Jail for his involvement in Mumbai blasts that claimed 350 lives and over 1200 injured.
Yakub allegedly handled his brother Tiger Memon’s funds and was accused of having funded the training of 15 youths who were sent to Pakistan for learning the art of handling arms and ammunition. He was also accused of funding the escape of the Memon family following the blasts in Mumbai.
A three judge bench headed by CJI H L Dattu rejected Memon’s plea saying that the grounds raised by him does not fall within the principles laid down by the apex court in 2002 in deciding the curative petition, the last judicial remedy available to an aggrieved person.
Memon, in his plea, had claimed he was suffering from schizophrenia since 1996 and remained behind the bars for nearly 20 years. He had sought commutation of death penalty contending that a convict cannot be awarded life term and the extreme penalty simultaneously for the same offence. “The petitioner has raised certain grounds in the curative petition which would not fall within the principles laid down in the case of Rupa Ashok Hurra vs Ashok Hurra. Since none of the grounds stated in the curative petition would fall within the parameters indicated in the case of Rupa Ashok Hurra (Supra), the curative petition stands dismissed,” the bench said.
The SC on April 9 this year had dismissed Memon’s petition seeking review of the his death sentence which was upheld on March 21, 2013. Memon’s review petition was heard by a three-judge bench in an open court in pursuance of a Constitution bench verdict that the practice of deciding review pleas in chambers be done away with, in cases where death penalty has been awarded.
The SC, on June 2, 2014, had stayed the execution of Memon and referred his plea to a Constitution bench as to whether review petitions in death penalty cases be heard in an open court or in chambers.