New Delhi : In a last-ditch bid to escape the hangman’s noose, Yakub Abdul Razak Memon, the sole death row convict in the 1993 Mumbai serial blasts case, on Thursday moved the Supreme Court seeking stay of execution of his sentence on the ground that all legal remedies have not been exhausted.
Memon, in his petition, has said that a lower court’s death warrant is illegal as all the legal remedies available to him under the law have not been exhausted and that he has also approached the Maharastra Governor with a plea for mercy.
He had filed the mercy plea before the Governor immediately after his curative petition was dismissed by the apex court on Tuesday.
Yakub’s lawyer told the apex court that the warrant issued by the trial court did not follow procedure and guidelines, while citing a case in May when the death warrants of an Uttar Pradesh couple were cancelled.
His petition says a death warrant was issued against him even before he could exhaust his last legal remedy -– a curative petition which was dismissed two days ago on July 21.
The Supreme Court in the UP case had then said that such warrants cannot be issued unless the convict has exhausted all legal options.
A three-judge bench headed by Chief Justice H L Dattu had on July 21 rejected Memon’s plea saying that the grounds raised by him do 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.
Yakub Memon has been convicted for his role in the 1993 blasts conspiracy and for arranging the finance and tickets for the co-conspirators to fly to Pakistan. Yakub, too, had fled to Pakistan but later decided to return to India. He was arrested on his return via Kathmandu at Delhi airport, though he claims he had surrendered. He had also professed his innocence and claimed that he was not part of the actual planning and execution of the diabolical plan.
The hanging is scheduled for July 30.
