Yakub Menon death sentence: Plea referred to Chief Justice of India
New Delhi: Yakub Menon’s plea challenging his death penalty has now been referred to the Chief Justice of India HL Dattu after a two judge bench of the Supreme Court were split on their verdict.
While Justice AR Dave dismissed his plea, Justice Kurian Joseph stayed the death warrant issued on April 30 for his executio n on July 30. “A defect in deciding curative petition needs to be cured otherwise there will be clear violation of right to life of the convict under Article 21 of the Constitution,” justice Joseph said.
On Tuesday, Yakub also filed a fresh petition challenging the validity of the SC’s July 21 order rejecting his curative petition. Yakub can now be hanged only after the SC rejects his petition –unlikely to happen by July 30, when he is scheduled to be executed at the Nagpur Central Jail, the day he turns 53.
The bench also requested the Chief Justice to constitute an appropriate bench and list the matter for hearing on Wednesday.
Chief Justice Dattu said “I will constitute a bench tomorrow” as Attorney General Mukul Rohatgi informed the bench about the split verdict earlier in the day, with common order asking the court registry to place before the chief justice for reference the matter to be listed before an appropriate bench.
Yakub and 11 others were slapped with the death penalty by a special TADA court in July 2007 for the dozen explosions that ripped through India’s financial capital, killing nearly 260 people at various landmarks and leaving more than 700 injured.
Yakub, was found guilty of criminal conspiracy, arranging money for buying vehicles used by the bombers and organising air tickets to Dubai for some of them.
