On 30 July 2015, last Thursday, Bhagwandas Road in New Delhi—where the Supreme Court of India is located—was bustling with an unusual amount of activity at around 3 am. As I made my way to court room number four to witness the final plea against the execution of Yakub Memon for his role in the 1993 Mumbai blasts, I was greeted by several outdoor broadcasting (OB) vans just outside the court premises, students, journalists, activists, and of course, lawyers. A bench of three judges from the Supreme Court—Justice Dipak Misra, Justice Prafulla C Pant and Justice Amitava Roy—had been constituted to hear the petition, and it was, by all accounts, an unprecedented event. The Supreme Court had never before heard a matter post-midnight inside the court premises. The proceedings commenced at 3.30 am, and Memon’s hanging was scheduled for 7 am, three-and-a-half-hours later.
At 11 am on 29 July 2015, Memon had submitted a 14-page mercy petition to President Pranab Mukherjee. At around 10.45 pm that night, the petition was rejected. By 1.30 am on Thursday, word had gotten around that Anand Grover and Yug Mohit Chaudhary, the advocates arguing for Memon, had gone to meet the Chief Justice of India, HL Dattu, earlier that night along with a few others including Prashant Bhushan, a Delhi-based lawyer and activist.
The Supreme Court rules state that any urgent application should be filed with, and scrutinised by the vacation registrar. Reports suggest that Memon’s final petition was filed by Rishabh Sancheti, one of Memon’s advocates, and the Advocate-on-Record (AOR)—an advocate who is entitled under the Supreme Court of India rules to act and plead for a party in the Supreme Court of India—Anindita Pujari with the vacation registrars between 8.20 pm and 8.45 pm on Wednesday.
After waiting for instructions at the Supreme Court till around 10 pm, Memon’s lawyers decided to go to Dattu’s residence. Information that was trickling in through hearsay at this point indicated that the group at Dattu’s house had argued that the execution was taking place even though Memon had been deprived of the due process, and that there were new and serious grounds in favour of his sentence being stayed. They were successful in convincing Dattu that Memon’s case deserved to be heard, and so, the final hearing was scheduled.
A little before the proceedings began, I struck a conversation with a journalist at the court premises. As we discussed the impending hearing, he predicted, “They’re probably going to extend the date by 14 days.” This appeared to be the prevalent sentiment among those present at the court, and I was inclined to agree. When I had first heard of the Supreme Court uncharacteristically convening that night, I assumed that this anomaly had been prompted by someone who conclusively thought that there were substantial grounds for the court to sit in this unprecedented manner. My assumption led me to believe that the court would reverse, or at the very least modify the decision—to not stay Memon’s execution—that had been passed in the evening.
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