President Pranab Mukherjee had in April rejected Memon’s mercy petition of Yakub Memon. (Source: Express Archive) President Pranab Mukherjee had in April rejected Memon’s mercy petition of Yakub Memon. (Source: Express Archive)

The Supreme Court on Thursday confirmed the death penalty for 1993 Mumbai serial bomb blasts convict Yakub Abdul Razak Memon, and junked his plea to reconsider the previous verdict.

A three-judge bench led by Justice Anil R Dave dismissed the review petition by Memon after holding there was no ground to interfere with the judgement to hand out capital punishment to him. Memon is left with the only legal remedy of filing a curative petition against this judgement.

Memon had sought the recall of March 21, 2013 apex court order upholding his death sentence on the grounds that he may be held guilty of a conspiracy to commit terrorist acts but he was not actually involved in executing the blasts that led to death of people.

According to his counsel Jaspal Singh, evidence could prove only an involvement of Memon in the conspiracy to commit a terrorist act and the punishment prescribed under the now repealed-Terrorist and Disruptive Activities (Prevention) Act did not entail a death sentence.

The court was told that under TADA, a person attracts death sentence only when he is actually involved in committing the terror strikes resulting in deaths of people. He also pointed out an alleged error by the trial court in relying upon certain documents which were otherwise not admissible as evidence. Singh further contended that the judgement was not ready when Memon was heard on the quantum of punishment and hence he had no occasion to know grounds of his conviction.

The top court had in June stayed the execution of Memon, who is the brother of Ibrahim Memon, better known as Tiger Memon, the alleged mastermind and the prime accused who is absconding in the blast case. President Pranab Mukherjee had in April rejected Memon’s mercy petition of Memon and the decision was left to the Maharashtra government for fixing the execution date. Memon is lodged in Nagpur jail.

In March last year, the SC had confirmed the death sentence awarded to Memon, holding him guilty of being the “driving spirit” behind the blasts that killed 257 people, while commuting the death sentence awarded to 10 others to life imprisonment till their death. The court had said that Memon’s “commanding position and the crime of utmost gravity” warranted capital punishment.

Memon’s review petition was heard in the open court in accordance with the Supreme Court’s landmark ruling, which held that review petitions against the verdict upholding the death sentence must be heard by a three-judges bench in open court.

A Constitution bench had said that all the death row convicts, whose review petitions have already been rejected but their sentence has not been executed, may file fresh petitions for an open court hearing of their review pleas within a month and they will be heard for at least half-an-hour.

However, in the cases, where the curative petition has already been decided, the death row convict will not have this opportunity to avail.

📣 The Indian Express is now on Telegram. Click here to join our channel (@indianexpress) and stay updated with the latest headlines

For all the latest India News, download Indian Express App.