New Delhi: Ahead of his execution on July 30, 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 death sentence.
Memon, in his petition said that all legal remedies have not been exhausted and he has also approached the Maharastra Governor with a plea for mercy.
After Menon’s petition was dismissed by the apex court on Tuesday, he had filed the mercy plea before the Governor.
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 does 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.
Memon, in his plea, had claimed he was suffering from schizophrenia since 1996 and remained behind the bars for nearly 20 years. He had sought commutation of death penalty contending that a convict cannot be awarded life term and the extreme penalty simultaneously for the same offence.
The apex court, on June 2, 2014, had stayed the execution of Memon and referred his plea to a Constitution bench as to whether review petitions in death penalty cases be heard in an open court or in chambers.
Memon had sought review of the March 21, 2013 verdict of the apex court upholding his death penalty in the case relating to 13 coordinated bomb blasts in Mumbai, killing 257 persons and injuring over 700 on March 12, 1993.