Supreme Court Judges Disagree on Yakub Memon's Plea to Stop his Hanging

New Delhi July 28, 2015(Agency) : Whether 1993 Mumbai blasts convict Yakub Memon should hang on Thursday has sharply divided two Supreme Court judges who today asked the Chief Justice of India to take a call.Chief Justice HL Dattu has been requested to decide on a new, larger bench, which he is expected to do this afternoon. Such a bench will have only one day to decide on Yakub.One of the judges, Justice Anil Dave, rejected Yakub's petition, quoting a Sanskrit shloka to say: "If the king doesn't punish the guilty with red eyes then the entire sin will come on the king."This was unacceptable to Justice Kurien Joseph, who said that there had been a clear violation of procedure and "such technicality should not stand in the way to protect the life of a person."Yakub has pleaded that the death warrant for his execution is illegal because it was issued when he had not quite exhausted every legal option; his curative petition had not been heard by the Supreme Court at the



time. It was rejected last week.Justice Dave refused to stop the death warrant, but Justice Joseph agreed that the curative petition had not been dealt with correctly, and that the defect "needs to be cured otherwise there will be clear violation of Right to Life of the convict."The court is for the protection of the life of a person, said Justice Joseph, and it should not be rendered powerless.Yakub Memon, 53, was found guilty in 2007 of helping plan the deadly terror attack in which 257 people were killed in Mumbai. His brother Tiger Memon, the main accused along with underworld don Dawood Ibrahim, has been missing since 1993.Of the 11 sentenced to death, Yakub, a chartered accountant, was the only convict not granted mercy.A group of eminent citizens, including politicians, jurists and retired judges, have asked President Pranab Mukherjee to grant mercy to Yakub, arguing that "in comparison to Yakub Memon, the 10 co-accused persons planted the bombs and played a much more critical and direct role."The president rejected Yakub's mercy plea last year.