The Supreme Court on Friday put the curtain down on the Parliament attack case by dismissing the plea of Mohd Afzal, seeking review of his death sentence, saying 'there is no merit' in his curative petition.
The only ray of hope left now for Afzal is his pending mercy petition before President A P J Abdul Kalam.
A Bench headed by Chief Justice Y K Sabharwal also rejected the petition of Shaukat Hussain Guru seeking review of his ten-year rigorous imprisonment for not disclosing the conspiracy to attack Parliament House on December 13, 2001.
Both of them had filed the curative petition, the last legal recourse before the court of law, alleging defects in the August 4, 2005 judgement of the apex court.
The Bench, which dismissed the two petitions also included Justices K G Balakrishnan, B N Agrawal and P P Naolekar.
Afzal had preferred to approach the Supreme Court during the pendency of his clemency plea before the President. He had contended that he was not given a fair trial in the case and was not represented by the lawyer of his choice.
Afzal had submitted that the rights guaranteed under Article 21 of the Constitution was violated in his case.
The court had earlier dismissed their review petitions against its August 4, 2005 verdict by which it had confirmed the capital punishment of Afzal awarded by the trial court and upheld by the Delhi High Court.
The High Court had also concurred with the death penalty awarded by trial court to Shaukat but the apex Court had reduced it to 10-year imprisonment.
The Supreme Court had also upheld the High Court's acquittal of S A R Geelani, a Delhi University lecturer by setting aside his conviction and death sentence by the trial court.
It had also concurred with the High Court in quashing the five-year sentence to the lone woman accused Navjot Sandhu alias Afsan Guru, wife of Shaukat by the trial court for not disclosing the conspiracy to attack Parliament.
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