Senior advocate KTS Tulsi on Wednesday said he was not in favour of awarding the death sentence to 1993 Mumbai blasts convict Yakub Memon.
“The question that has been posed before the larger bench is whether the curative petition was correctly decided or not; the coram was correct or not. Normally, it is the prerogative of the chief justice, but, in the curative petition, there is a practice that the judges who rejected the review petition, they should be included in the bench, which will decide whether the curative petition should be entertained or not,” Tulsi told.
“I believe that in this case, if the judges, who decided the review petition were available, they are sitting judges on the bench, they ought to have been joined. But, let us see. This is an irreversible decision.
Execution snuffs out human life. So, you have to be absolutely correct and, there should no scope for error, and if conviction is only by a majority. I am completely opposed to awarding the death sentence even if there is any minority opinion with regard to the guilt or the punishment,” he added.
A three-judge bench comprising Justices Dipak Misra, Prafulla C. Pant and Amitava Roy will today hear Yakub’s plea seeking a stay on his execution.
Chief Justice H.L. Dattu constituted a larger three-judge bench after a two-judge bench of Justices A.R. Dave and Kurian Joseph delivered a split verdict yesterday on Yakub’s plea. While Justice Dave dismissed his plea without staying the death warrant, Justice Kurian differed and favoured a stay.