'I got to know the men accused of the blasts regularly meeting them in court and jail. Some of them, like Dutt, are back in jail. Others, like Mohammed Jindran, a quiet and well spoken middle class man, were killed. And now of course Yakub is ready to be hanged. The first in the case to do so,' says Aakar Patel.
The home ministry has recommended to the President that the mercy petition of Yakub Abdul Razak Memon, a convict in the 1993 Mumbai serial blasts, be rejected.
In his petition to the Supreme Court, Yakub had stated that he had been in jail for more than 20 years, which is more than the jail term awarded for life imprisonment, which is 14 years.
The Supreme Court on Wednesday dismissed the curative petition of the Centre filed against the commutation of death penalty into life imprisonment of three convicts in the Rajiv Gandhi assassination case, granting a fresh lease of life to them.
Stoking a controversy, Congress leader Digvijay Singh on said the credibility of government and judiciary was at stake after the "urgency" shown in Yakub Memon's case while his party MP Shashi Tharoor questioned the efficacy of death sentence in serving as a deterrent.
The order for Mohan's release follows the cabinet nod for amending the prison rules under which, previously, those involved in serious cases like the killing of a government servant could not be released even after the elapse of 14 years.
The Supreme Court on Tuesday sought response from the four death row convicts in the Nirbhaya gang rape and murder case on the Centre's appeal challenging the Delhi high court verdict which dismissed its plea against stay on their execution.
A 33-year-old American woman has been sentenced to 24 years in prison for pushing an Indian man to death in front of a subway train in an attack apparently motivated by religious animus.
Purohit eventually cleared them only after obtaining legal opinion from the state Advocate General.
The Supreme Court on Wednesday restrained all states from exercising power of remission for releasing convicts from jail who are serving life sentence and sought their response whether the Centre's nod was needed for the purpose in cases prosecuted by central agencies like Central Bureau of Investigation.
The 1993 Delhi bomb blast case convict Prof Devinder Pal Singh Bhullar was on Friday shifted to Amritsar Central Jail from Delhi's Tihar Jail.
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Jubilation gave way to despair at Vellore Jail after the Supreme Court on Thursday stayed the release of convicts in the Rajiv Gandhi assassination case.
Former Supreme Court judge Markandey Katju today said the apex court had made some "serious mistakes" in the Soumya case by commuting the death sentence of the accused to life, and attributed it to "judges not being able to give much time to cases due to heavy workload of pending cases".
A five-judge Constitution Bench headed by Chief Justice J S Khehar dismissed the pleas on the ground of delay in filing the petition and also on merit.
The tragedy is that, at least on social media, the narrative that was being lapped up by many Indian Muslims was that Yakub Memon was being victimised. The purveyors of this poisonous line of thinking of course want this sentiment to grow since communal polarisation is the primary pillar of their political strategy, says Sushant Sareen.
The Supreme Court on Thursday deferred until March 26 the hearing on the Centre's plea against the Tamil Nadu government's decision to release seven prisoners convicted in the Rajiv Gandhi assassination case.
Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee President Avtar Singh makkar on Friday reacted strongly against the rejection of the death commutation plea of Devinder Pal Singh Bhullar, a death row convict, by the Supreme Court, terming it a 'murder of law'.
If we accept that there is a challenge in Punjab today, any realistic progress can only be made if the rest of the country, especially the government and the ruling party, engage with this sense of grievance, points out Shekhar Gupta
Speaking exclusively to rediff.com's Anita Katyal, Narayansamy recalled that Rajiv was to address a public meeting in Puducherry the morning after his rally in Sriperumbudur but unfortunately it was not to be.
With the Lok Sabha elections schedule set to be announced soon, party vice-president Rahul Gandhi will be holding consultations with senior party leaders on Friday at an informal meeting of the Congress Working Committee. Renu Mittal reports
After staying release of three convicts in the Rajiv Gandhi assassination case, the Supreme Court on Thursday restrained the Tamil Nadu government from letting out four more convicts in the case.
The curative petition and other legal remedies still available to Yakub Memon are part of his rights as a prisoner condemned to death. Does the Maharashtra government want to deprive him of these rights, asks Jyoti Punwani.
Our former PM was killed by these people. What mercy is to be seen or shown, said the government to the SC.
'B Raman knew that Yakub Memon should not be given the capital punishment but at the same time he harboured too much anger against Dawood Ibrahim and 'Tiger' Memon, and wanted to see that they do not stand to gain in the legal process in any manner whatsoever.'
A Delhi court on Saturday dismissed an application filed by Vinay Sharma, one of the four death row convicts in Nirbhaya gang-rape case, seeking specialised medical treatment for claimed insanity. The court observed that general anxiety and depression are obvious for those on death row.
'My confidence in the Indian judiciary is absolute after I saw justice being delivered in Gujarat even when a BJP government was ruling the state. The Muslims of Gujarat believed that they will never get justice in a BJP-ruled state, but the facts are before all of us to make a judgment.'
After strong protests from the Sikh community, Arizona's Republican Governor Jan Brewer has vetoed a bill that sought to remove the name of Balbir Singh Sodhi, who was murdered four days after the 9/11 attacks, from a memorial panel.
Justice Katju had criticised the verdict commuting to life the death sentence awarded to Govindachamy for raping 23-year-old sales representative Soumya on February 1, 2011, after she fell out a moving train in Kerala.
'This is a politically motivated decision.' 'Nitish Kumar is desperate to win as many parliamentary seats as possible.'
Former Bihar MP Anand Mohan, who is serving a life sentence in the killing of Indian Administrative Service officer G Krishnaiah, is to be set free along with 26 others who have been lodged in different prisons of the state for more than 14 years.
Nalini, who is serving a life term in the Rajiv Gandhi assassination case in the Vellore Central Jail, is pinning her hopes on an early release from prison, even as Congressmen paid floral tributes to the late leader on the 17th anniversary of his death on Wednesday.She has filed a petition in the high court to set her at liberty, after her hopes for an early release on account of her good conduct while being in prison, were dashed.
The Delhi high court judge, who had awarded death penalty to Santosh Kumar Singh in the Priyadarshini Mattoo case, on Wednesday said that he did not view the Supreme Court's decision of commuting the sentence as a failure of judicial system as apex court judges are 'wiser'.
Here are some of the worst terror attacks in recent history with trains and passengers as intended targets.
Rajiv Gandhi assassination case convict A G Perarivalan on Wednesday celebrated the Supreme Court verdict directing his release by playing the Tamil percussion instrument 'Parai' and now wants to breathe the air of freedom before thinking about his future, as the apex court ruling put an end to his three-decade prison term.
National award-winning director S P Jananathan talks about his new film Purampokku Engira Podhuvudamai.
Johnny has been convicted for killing his Indonesian lover.
Apparently pained at politics over the execution of death row convict Devinder Pal Singh Bhullar, All India Anti-Terrorist Front Chairman M S Bitta on Tuesday criticised the Punjab Congress unit for backing the demand for commuting the sentence. "I am mentally tortured by the Congress and central intelligence agencies for the past 18 years. I have completely failed to face political terrorism in the country," Bitta said.
In an unprecedented order, the Supreme Court on Monday summoned one of its former judges, Markandey Katju, to appear in person before it to point out the "fundamental flaws", as claimed by him in the sensational Soumya rape case.
"I am not satisfied with the sentence. This can be discussed only by the legal experts as it is quite evident that even the Supreme Court has upheld the verdict of the Delhi High Court," Chaman Lal Mattoo said.
Rediff.com looks at other sensational murder mysteries that left India shell-shocked.
