SC junks curative petition of Yakub Memon in 1993 blasts case

Decks were cleared for the hanging this month-end of Yakub Abdul Razak Memon, sole death row convict and a co-conspirator of fugitive Dawood Ibrahim in the 1993 Mumbai serial blasts case, with the Supreme Court today dismissing his curative petition.
A three judge bench headed by Chief Justice 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.
He is due to be hanged on July 30.
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 apex court said, "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, also comprising T S Thakur and A R Dave, said.

The apex court 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 apex court, 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.
Memon had sought review of the March 21, 2013 verdict of the apex court upholding his death penalty in the case relating to 13 coordinated bomb blasts in Mumbai, killing 350 persons and injuring 1,200 others on the afternoon March 12, 1993.