SC to hear 40 ‘death cases’ from Sep 7 including LeT terrorist Ashaf’s sentence

The Supreme Court has issued a circular stating that 40 ‘Death Cases’ will be listed before three-judge benches starting from September 7 including the one related to LeT terrorist Mohammad Arif.

The list includes four review petitions of convicts whose appeals were dismissed by the court upholding death penalty.

One of the cases scheduled to be heard by the top court relates to the sentence of Lashkar-e-Taiba terrorist Mohammad Arif alias Ashfaq in the 2000 Red Fort attack case in which three people, including two Army jawans, were killed.

The top court had earlier issued fresh standard operating procedure (SOP) to accord final hearing of cases in physical mode from September 1, and said it will employ a hybrid option from Tuesday to Thursday with strict observance of COVID-19 norms.

The top court has been hearing cases through video-conferencing since March last year due to the pandemic and several bar bodies and lawyers have been demanding that physical hearings should resume immediately.

The SOP, issued by the Secretary General on August 28, had made it clear that the courts would keep hearing miscellaneous cases through virtual mode on Mondays and Fridays.