Yakub Memon files fresh mercy petition with President

1993 Mumbai blasts convict Yakub Memon has filed a fresh mercy petition with President Pranab Mukherjee just a day before he is scheduled to be hanged. Yakub is scheduled to be hanged on Thursday morning.

The fresh plea has been filed by his lawyers even as a three-member bench of the Supreme Court is currently hearing his plea against his death warrant. This hearing comes after the earlier two-judge bench of Justices AR Dave and Kurian Joseph was divided in its opinion and left it to Chief Justice of India HL Dattu to set up a larger bench to decide if Yakub's execution needs a rethink.While Justice Dave found no merit in Yakub's petition, Justice Kurian said the curative petition needs to be heard again as due process was not followed. Yakub has challenged the death warrant saying it was issued before his curative petition was heard by the SC.

The Chief Justice of India has constituted a larger bench of Justices Dipak Misra, Prafulla C Pant and Amitava Roy to decide the destiny of Memon who is the the lone death row convict in the 1993 Mumbai blasts case.

The new bench on Wednesday will have the task of deciding whether to stay the death warrant issued by TADA court in Mumbai on April 30 and go into the merits of Memon's petition.