SC official resigns after Yakub ruling

Ananya Sengupta, TT, New Delhi, Aug. 1: The deputy registrar (research) at the Supreme Court has resigned a day after describing its last two decisions on Yakub Memon as "instances of judicial abdication that must count amongst the darkest hours" for the top court.

Around 4pm on Wednesday and close to 5am on Thursday, the Supreme Court had turned down two petitions from the sole condemned prisoner in the Bombay blasts case, leading to his hanging as scheduled.

Legal circles could not immediately remember any senior Supreme Court executive resigning in the wake of a verdict before Anup Surendranath put in his papers yesterday.

Supreme Court spokesperson Rakesh Sharma told this newspaper: "He resigned because he wanted to pursue his research work. I deny that he resigned over the Yakub Memon hanging."

Contacted by The Telegraph, Surendranath did not cite any specific reason for his resignation but said: "It is very clear from my posts on Facebook what I feel about the death penalty and what I feel about the SC judgment on Yakub Memon."

He added: "I reiterate that the decision was indeed the darkest hour of the SC. I will write about my decision soon. I do not wish to comment further on the issue."

Surendranath, a known campaigner against the death penalty on principle, said he was particularly dismayed by the apex court decisions on Yakub's execution.

He had announced his resignation in a Facebook post earlier today, saying he had been contemplating an exit "for a while" but describing the Yakub judgment as the "final nail".

"I have been contemplating this for a while now for a variety of reasons, but what was played out this week at the Supreme Court was the proverbial final nail - I have resigned from my post at the Supreme Court to focus on death penalty work at the university," he wrote.

Surendranath, who joined the apex court in May last year, had continued teaching at the National Law University, Delhi. He is director of the university's Death Penalty Research Project, which studies how death-row convicts' socio-economic background influences the legal hurdles they face.

Surendranath specialises in constitutional law and human rights with particular focus on equality, and has a doctorate from Oxford. He graduated from the Nalsar University of Law, Hyderabad, in 2006.

"It is in many ways liberating to regain the freedom to write whatever I want and I hope to make full use of that in the next few days to discuss the events that transpired at the Supreme Court this week," he wrote in the Facebook post.

On Thursday, hours after Yakub was hanged, Surendranath had written an anguished Facebook post.

"It would be silly and naive to see the events of the last 24 hours at the Supreme Court as some triumph of the rule of law - the two orders at 4pm on 29th July and 5am on 30th July (and the reasoning adopted therein) are instances of judicial abdication that must count amongst the darkest hours for the Supreme Court of India," he wrote.

"Irrespective of what the high-priests of Tilak Marg might feel, this fight is going to be fought until the very last minute. Every last option is going to be explored and every goddamn ground taken. It must be made difficult to take a person's life, as difficult as possible. And that's the way it should be."

Tilak Marg is where the apex court is located. Some who knew Surendranath were not surprised at his exit.

"Great.. I was wondering how you were squaring your work on the death penalty with the official position in the Supreme Court," posted Sukumar Muralidharan, a research fellow at the Indian Institute of Advanced Studies, Himachal Pradesh.

Senior apex court lawyer K.V. Dhananjay said he understood Surendranath's sentiments. "It would be very difficult to appreciate the iron-clad stand the Supreme Court took in this case," he said.