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Author: A Vaidyanathan
Publication: NDTV.com
Date: January 12, 2007
URL: http://www.ndtv.com/template/template.asp?fromtimeline=true&id=99373&callid=1&template=parliamentattack
[Note from the Hindu Vivek Kendra: Will the secularists now say let the law take its own course, as they did when the Kanchi Shankaracharya was arrested? I doubt it, since they wish not only to be the prosecutor but also the judge.]
The Supreme Court has upheld the death penalty for Mohammad Afzal, the key accused in the Parliament attack case, and dismissed his curative petition.
Afzal, who has been awarded death penalty in the Parliament Attack case, had filed a curative petition before the Supreme Court for reviewing his penalty.
He said he had not been given advocate of his choice to defend his case.
But the Apex court bench headed by the outgoing Chief Justice YK Sabharwal dismissed the petition saying it has no merit.
He had said the rights guaranteed to Afzal under Article 21 of the Constitution were violated in his case.
Clemency plea
The apex court had earlier dismissed their review petitions against its August 4, 2005 verdict, by which it had confirmed the capital punishment given to Afzal by the trial court and upheld by the Delhi High Court.
A Delhi court had set October 20 as the date for the hanging of Afzal, sparking widespread protests in Jammu and Kashmir.
The execution was put off after his wife, and later Afzal himself, submitted clemency petitions to the President.
Now Afzal's last recourse is the mercy petition, which is with President A P J Abdul Kalam.
The Supreme Court also declined to review the curative petition filed by Shaukat Hussain Guru, another accused in the case, seeking to review his 10-year sentence. (With PTI inputs)
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