Supreme Court To Hear Yakub Memon’s Curative Petition Today

An apex court bench headed by Chief Justice H.L. Dattu rejected Memon’s curative petition challenging an earlier verdict to uphold the death sentence.

His death sentence was upheld by a Supreme Court bench on March 21, 2013.

Justice (Retired) P.D. Kode, who gave the death penalty to Memon in connection with the 1993 Mumbai blast case, said that the court’s decision has made the common man retain his faith in the judiciary.

Amnesty worldwide, which campaigns against the use of the death penalty, said the rejection of Memon’s appeal was a “disappointing and regressive step”.

The Supreme Court decision to dismiss the curative petition of 1993 Mumbai blast convict Yakub Memon is “historic and would send a strong signal to the people in the country and across the border that guilty would not be spared”, said Special Public Prosecutor Ujjwal Nikam.

Sources say the date and time of execution has already been approved by Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis. According to the warrant Yakub Memon is likely to be hanged at the Central jail in Nagpur at 7 am on July 30, Shubail Farook, his lawyer in the Supreme Court.

But President Pranab Mukherjee has rejected a number of mercy pleas in recent years, ending an unofficial eight-year moratorium. Kode of the Terrorist and Disruptive Activities (prevention) Act court in July 2007, after being found guilty of criminal conspiracy, aiding and abetting and facilitating in a terrorist act, illegal possession and transportation of arms and ammunition and possessing explosives with intent to endanger lives.

A TADA court in Mumbai had convicted 100 out of the 123 accused.

Memon, a former chartered accountant, is the brother of the prime accused in the case. He came back with his family, including a child, then an infant. Memon, in his plea, had claimed he was suffering from schizophrenia since 1996 and remained behind the bars for almost 20 years.

The Bombay Stock Exchange, the offices of Air India and a luxury hotel were among the targets of the March 1993 blasts, which killed 257 people in India’s commercial capital.