Mercy-go-round of pleas

The execution of terror mastermind Yakub Memon ends one sordid chapter in the 1993 Mumbai attacks. For the case as a whole to be closed, Memon's main co-conspirators, particularly Ibrahim ‘Tiger' Memon and Dawood Ibrahim, who engineered the serial blasts that claimed almost 300 lives and left a permanent scar on the national psyche, will have to be brought to book. Given that these men are yet to be arrested, it will be a while before justice is fully done. In the meantime, the Indian state cannot sit back and let the matter be relegated to some dusty file cabinet. Apart from continuing with its efforts to capture the other masterminds, it must also address the issues that came up in the past few days leading to Yakub Memon's execution. First is the set of legal maneuvers attempted by the convict's supporters to save him from the noose even at the last hour. While a death row inmate and those pleading on his behalf have every right to use all legal options available to them, surely, at some point, these options have to end. There is no reason why executions — which are scheduled only after years of deliberations — should become Bollywood blockbusters with a nail-biting finish. This is an issue that legal experts need to look into. 

That said, the Supreme Court's unprecedented move to open up its doors in the wee hours of the night and hear a final plea from Yakub Memon's sympathisers, deserves to be applauded. On Thursday, a three-judge Bench, led by the Chief Justice, was set-up after 1AM and a final review petition heard at 03.20 AM. At 04.50 AM, the Bench rejected the petition and the convict was hanged just before 7AM. Many have disapproved of this last-minute bid as arm-twisting the judiciary while others have rightly wondered if a ‘lesser' convict, who couldn't count on the country's top legal minds among it sympathisers, would have the same kind of access. But in the given circumstances, had the Supreme Court not heard the last petition, it would have left the state open to criticism of riding roughshod over the rights of the convict. 

The second issue deals with capital punishment in general. If India wishes to continue with capital punishment, there has to be more clarity on its implementation of death sentences. In recent years, the death penalty has only been used in high-profile cases: In 2013, Parliament attack mastermind Afzal Guru and, in 2012, Ajmal Kasab, the lone gunman caught alive from the 26/11 carnage, were hanged. Before that, Dhananjoy Chatterjee was hanged in 2004 for rape and murder. Since 1995, Chatterjee has been the only ‘non-terrorist' to have been executed. The flip side is this is that there is a long list of death row convicts waiting for the inevitable — which may not be that unavoidable after all, according to a recent Supreme Court ruling. Because the UPA Government had taken more than a decade to decide on the mercy petitions of former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi's assassins, the apex court last year spared the convicts the hangman's noose. This brings us to the third issue: The need for the political executive to dismiss mercy petitions on time. Ideally, this should be done within a pre-determined time limit or at least within a reasonable amount of time.