Questions that will not die

A week after Yakub Abdul Razak Memon was sent to the gallows for his role in the 1993 Mumbai serial blasts, questions have been raised about the nature of the Supreme Court proceedings leading up to the execution, and the manner of disposal of his mercy plea by President Pranab Mukherjee hours before he was hanged. On July 28, 2015, while dealing with a writ petition filed by Yakub Memon claiming procedural irregularity and violation of natural justice in the issue of a death warrant by a TADA court in Mumbai, a bench of Justices Anil R. Dave and Kurian Joseph disagreed on the latter’s point that Memon’s curative petition was not heard by the Supreme Court in accordance with the mandatory procedure prescribed in Order 48 of the Supreme Court Rules, 2013. In the split verdict Justice Dave observed in the judgment that “submissions made about the curative petition do not appeal to me as they are irrelevant and there is no substance in them.” Justice Joseph raised the serious issue that “the procedure prescribed under the law has been violated while dealing with the curative petition and that too, dealing with life of a person.” Staying the death warrant, Justice Joseph observed that the Supreme Court committed a serious procedural violation under Order 48, Rule 4 of the Supreme Court Rules, 2013 by not including all the judges, including him, who had heard Memon’s review petition in the subsequent curative process. Hours after this judgment was pronounced, the same night, the President rejected Memon’s mercy petition, triggering another round of litigation, which culminated in the unprecedented pre-dawn hearing at the Supreme Court even as the clock ticked for the condemned man. The judgment held that Memon had had sufficient time to make “wordly arrangements” when the “first mercy petition”, filed by his brother Suleiman, was rejected by the President in April 2014.