It’s a battle that will aim to ensure that death row convicts in a similar situation “do not suffer”
The hangman did his job, and Yakub Memon is dead.
But it seems a fight will continue nonetheless.
It’s a battle that will aim to ensure that death
row convicts in a similar situation “do not suffer”. And leading the battle
will be Anand Grover, the senior Supreme Court lawyer who represented Memon in
two crucial hearings.
The eminent lawyer feels that by dismissing Memon’s
mercy plea just two hours before his execution on Thursday, the apex court
committed a “tragic mistake”.
“Supreme Court committed a tragic mistake. Yakub
Memon did not get time to come to peace with his own god, come to peace
with his own soul and even settle the will with his family. He may be dead but
I will still move the apex court so that convicts in identical situations do not
suffer. I hope the Supreme Court will change this norm,” Grover told.
Memon, the lone convict to be sentenced to death in
the 1993 Mumbai bomb blasts case, was hanged to death in the Nagpur Central
Prison at 6.43am on Thursday after a day of intense court room action and an
unprecedented night-long legal proceeding in the Supreme Court.
Apparently the country’s apex court wanted to send
across an impression that it will not stand in the way of anybody who wanted to
exhaust his last legal remedy.
“It was a tragic mistake and a wrong decision. The
authorities were hell bent on executing him without giving him the right to
challenge the rejection of his mercy petition by the President as right to life
of a condemned prisoner lasts till his last breath,” Grover said.
He questioned how the apex court accepted the
argument of the Modi government’s Attorney General Mukul Rohatgi that Memon had
one-and-a-half years to file the curative petition, the last legal remedy
available to a death convict, when the second official review petition was
dismissed only on April 9, 2015.
“When the apex court allowed hearing of the review
petition in an open court in Mohammad Arif’s case it is a continuation of the
process. At that stage the earlier review petition need not be counted,” Grover
said.
Memon should have been given a chance to challenge
the rejection of the mercy plea by the Maharashtra Governor and President
Pranab Mukherjee which was his right, Grover said. He had a right to go to
the court and challenge it, he added.
“It is totally unacceptable how the two executive
authorities could reject overnight the mercy petitions which had cited new
grounds like the convict suffering from schizophrenia and his good conduct in
the jail,” Grover said.
The President should also have considered the fact
that the mercy petition moved by the convict on Wednesday was the first by
himself and all the earlier ones were by his relatives including his brother.
“In the historic judgment in Shatrughan Chauhan
case the court ruled that in cases of death sentence if there is undue delay in
execution then the sentence can be reduced to life imprisonment. It had said
that after a mercy petition is rejected one has every chance to challenge it,”
said Grover.
“Apparently, the fear of the court and the
authorities was if they allow a stay we would have challenged the mercy plea
and it could get dragged on and the execution could get delayed. But remember
it was our right,” said Memon’s lawyer.
In a last-ditch effort to save Memon from the
gallows and get the hanging fixed for 7am deferred, Memon’s battery of eminent
lawyers - Prashant Bhushan, Nitya Ramakrishnan Yug Chaudhary and Vrinda Grover
- cited the Maharashtra Jail Manual that mandated seven days gap between
rejection of mercy petition or curative petition and execution of a
convict.
They also reminded the court about the 14-day gap
between the day of rejection of mercy plea and execution, but it literally fell
on deaf ears.
They vehemently argued that these rulings are being
violated, but the apex court was not impressed.
Grover was of the view that the three-judge bench
which finally dismissed Memon’s plea should not have totally ignored the
conclusion of Justice Kurian Joseph, one of the judges in the earlier Bench
that there was a procedural lapse in the way the convict’s curative petition
was heard.
“He should have got a benefit of doubt. There
should have been a relook as Justice Kurian suggested. What was the hurry in
hanging and decision making? It was after all an issue of taking the life of a
man. As the old saying goes, if you cannot give life you cannot take a life,”
said Grover.
