New Delhi, Oct. 17: The Supreme Court has "requested" one of its retired judges, Justice Markandey Katju, to appear before it in person and take part in proceedings to establish whether an order commuting a Kerala rapist's death sentence to a life term suffered from any fundamental flaw.

This is the first time the Supreme Court has issued such a request. Katju had blogged that the court had erred in law by not holding the accused guilty of murder.

The court today issued a notice to Justice Katju to present himself before it on November 11 at 2pm, virtually daring him to a debate on its September 15 order about which he had made controversial comments in a Facebook blog a day later.

A three-judge bench of Justices Ranjan Gogoi, P.C. Pant and U.U. Lalit also said it was keeping on hold review petitions filed by the Kerala government and the victim's mother till the debate with Justice Katju was over.

The court mentioned Katju's Facebook blog and remarked that the former judge of the apex court had said the September 15 order "needs to be reviewed in an open court hearing".

It said it was converting the Facebook blog into a "suo motu review petition".

The victim, a 23-year-old furnishing showroom assistant, had been either pushed out or had jumped out of a slow-moving Kerala train in February 2011 to escape a rape attempt by Govindaswamy. But he too had jumped out and raped her. She died a few days later in hospital.

Another application is pending in the apex court against Justice Katju for remarks he allegedly made against members of the Justice R.M. Lodha panel that recommended far-reaching changes in the Indian cricket board. The application is pending before another bench headed by Chief Justice T.S. Thakur.

In the rape case, the Supreme Court had in the September 15 order modified the death sentence awarded to Govindaswamy. It had held that the convict was not responsible for the woman's death as it could not be conclusively established that he had pushed her out of the train.

The top court had, however, upheld his conviction and life term for rape.

Today's Supreme Court order said: "A former judge of this court, Justice Markandey Katju, in a blog published on Facebook, has expressed an opinion that the judgment and order dated 15th September, 2016, passed by this bench in criminal appeal No.1584-1585 of 2014 needs to be reviewed in an open court hearing."

The apex court said "such a view coming from a retired judge of this court needs to be treated with greatest of respect and consideration. We, therefore, reproduce herein below the blog published by Justice Katju in Facebook and convert the same into a suo motu review petition."

The court said it was requesting former Justice Katju "to appear in court in person and participate in the proceedings on 11th November, 2016, at 2.00 p.m." and tell if the verdict "suffers from any fundamental flaw so as to require exercise of the review jurisdiction".