New Delhi: The Supreme Court stayed Monday the execution of death penalty awarded to a convict in the 23-year-old case of bomb blast in a bus at Samleti in Dausa district, in which 14 persons were killed.
A bench of Chief Justice SA Bobde and Justices BR Gavai and Surya Kant ordered that condemned convict Abdul Hameed be not executed until further orders and agreed to hear his appeal against the Rajasthan High Court judgement upholding his death penalty in the 1996 terror attack case.
“Until further orders, there shall be stay of operation of the impugned judgment(s) and order(s) passed by the High Court and stay of execution of the death sentence. List these matters after four weeks. In the meantime, the Registry of this Court is directed to call the Original Record of these appeals from the courts below,” the bench stated.
The High Court, in its July 22 judgement, had acquitted six persons while upholding the death sentence awarded to one and the life term to another in the bomb blast case.
The six acquitted persons included five Jammu and Kashmir natives Javed Khan, Latif Ahmed, Mohammad Ali Bhatt, Mirja Nissa Hussain and Abdul Ghani. The sixth one, Rais Beg, who was acquitted is from Agra in Uttar Pradesh.
A trial court at Bandikui in Dausa had awarded death penalty to Dr Abdul Hameed, and life terms to seven others in the case.
The Rajasthan High Court upheld the death penalty awarded to Abdul Hameed. It said he was the key person behind planting of the bomb in the bus going to Bikaner from Agra, May 22, 1996. It had also upheld the life term awarded to Pappu alias Salim, holding him to be responsible for supplying the explosives.
All eight were convicted by the Bandikui sessions court for various offences under the IPC, the Explosives Act and the Prevention of Damage to Public Property (PDPP) Act.
Dr Hameed whose death penalty was upheld in the Samleti bomb blast case is also a key accused in the case related to planting of bombs in the SMS Stadium of Jaipur, January 26, 1996.
PTI
