Yakub Menon hanged: Night without end, death at dawn Thursday July 30,2015

 

Shortly after Yakub Memon turned in for his last night on earth, three Supreme Court judges were woken up by an urgent message from Chief Justice of India H L Dattu at around 1.30am. Could they hear a petition seeking postponement of Yakub's execution?

Justices Dipak Misra, P C Pant and Amitava Roy hastily got dressed and headed for the court. Attorney-general Mukul Rohatgi then received a call at around 2.30am, asking him to appear before the bench.

At 3.24am, one of the most extraordinary hearings in the SC's history began in Court No. 4 -- where the same bench had rejected Memon's plea for a stay on his execution just a few hours ago. The bench heard the arguments of Memon's counsel, Anand Grover, as well as AG Rohatgi. It began dictating its order at 4.40am, and concluded at 4.56am. The verdict was unambiguous -- Yakub's final petition was dismissed and the hanging would proceed

Barely five minutes later, Memon was woken up at Nagpur Central Jail. His first query to his guards was about the fate of the petition. He was informed that it had been turned down. Two hours later, he was dead.

Yakub's body was handed over to his family, from where it was brought to Mumbai and buried amid elaborate security arrangements, prompted by fear of a backlash.

Earlier on Wednesday July 29,2015, the three-judge bench had rejected Yakub's plea, and dictated a 31-page judgment in open court. The correction of the order in-chamber took some time and the final order was out by 9.45pm, in what had seemed to be the denouement of a long drawn-out legal battle to keep the former chartered accountant from being sent to the gallows for complicity in the 1993 Mumbai serial blasts.