NEW DELHI (TIP): Yakub Memon has been executed but he has left behind a litigation record that will be difficult to break – his petitions were dealt with by as many as 14 judges of the Supreme Court in a span of two years. The SC has a strength of 31 judges including the CJI.

A bench of Justices P S Sathasivam and B S Chauhan, both since retired, had dismissed Yakub’s appeal and upheld his conviction and death sentence in the 1993 Mumbai serial blasts case on March 21, 2013. His review petition was dismissed in chamber by the same two judges on July 30, 2013, his birthday.

Yakub had moved a writ petition challenging the procedure for deciding petitions seeking review of a judgment. A bench of then CJI R M Lodha and Justices J S Khehar, J Chelameswar, A K Sikri and R F Nariman ruled that a petition seeking review of judgments upholding death penalty should be heard in open court, at least for 30 minutes, as it involved extinguishing of life.

This allowed him to file a fresh review petition, which was heard by a bench of Justices A R Dave, J Chelameswar and Kurian Joseph for 10 days in open court before its dismissal on April 9 this year.

Yakub’s curative petition was dismissed in chamber by a bench of Chief Justice H L Dattu and Justices T S Thakur and A R Dave on July 21. With the execution scheduled for July 30, Yakub moved the court again seeking stay of his death penalty on the ground that his fresh mercy plea was pending with the governor.

Within hours of dismissal of the petition, Yakub moved his final petition seeking stay of execution and it was placed well past midnight before the same three-judge bench which dismissed it just two hours before the scheduled 7 am hanging on July 30.