A Supreme Court judge on Wednesday recused himself from hearing the plea of Yakub Razzak Memon, a death row convict in 1993 Mumbai serial blast case, seeking review of its previous order which upheld the capital punishment awarded to him by a special court in Mumbai.
While recusing himself from hearing the case, Justice U U Lalit, one of the three members of the bench headed by Justice Anil R Dave, said he cannot hear the case as he had represented some of the co-accused in the case when he was practising as a lawyer.
Now, the case will go to another bench which will not include Justice Lalit.
On September 26, the court had stayed the execution of Memon till its further order.
Memon moved the top court seeking it to reopen his review petition, which was already dismissed, saying he has not filed the curative petition and this court can hear his plea once again.
He cited a recent judgment passed by a constitutional bench, which had said those death row convicts who have not filed curative petition can move the Supreme Court for reopening of their review plea.
On September 2, a five-judge constitution bench had expanded the scope of Article 21 (right to life) in cases of death convicts and said now onwards all the review pleas will be heard by a three-judge bench in an open court.
Granting liberty to death row convicts like Memon, the bench had also said, "For those cases where review has been dismissed but execution not taken place the death row convict can approach the court within a month of this judgment and also in those cases where curative petitions have not been filed the convict can approach the court for rehearing of his review plea."
Memon's review plea was first dismissed by this very court last year and President Pranab Mukherjee had rejected his mercy plea following recommendations of the Maharashtra government and the Union Home ministry in May this year.
Then, he had approached Supreme Court to commute his sentence to life imprisonment saying he is in jail for past 20 years and death would be a harsher punishment, which is longer than the 14-year jail term awarded in cases of life sentence.
Memon, a chartered accountant and brother of fugitive terror mastermind Tiger Memon, was sentenced to death by a special court under TADA in 2007, after being found guilty of charges of criminal conspiracy and for arranging finances and managing its disbursement through the co-accused in the 1993 Mumbai serial blast case. The top court upheld the TADA court's verdict in March, 2013.
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