TEAM HERALD
NEW DELHI: In a snub to Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa for her bid to set free all convicted for assassination of former prime minister Rajiv Gandhi, the Supreme Court on Thursday stayed release of any assassin, expanding its February 20 order to prevent freedom to three whose death sentence it had commuted last week.
It restrained the Tamil Nadu government from releasing four assassins Nalini Sriharan, Robert Pious, Jayakumar and Ravichandran undergoing life term on a Centre’s petition on Jayalalithaa misinterpreting the February 20 order staying release of Murugan, husband of Nalini, Santhan and Perarivalan that the court had not stopped release of other four.
The Bench headed by Chief Justice P Sathasivam also issued a notice to the Tamil Nadu government on the Centre challenging its announcement to release the assassins. Justices Ranjan Gogoi and N V Ramana are two other judges on the Bench.
Less than 24 hours after the top court commuted the death sentence of the three convicts on ground of delay in deciding their clemency pleas, Jayalalithaa had announced to set free all seven convicts in the case, seeking the Centre’s approval “within three days” or else she would go ahead.
The Apex Court had agreed on Monday to hear the Centre’s plea to restrain the Tamil Nadu government after an additional solicitor general cited its claim of no court restriction on the release of four not covered in February 20 order and asserted that the state government has no jurisdiction to release the conspirators tried by central agency CBI.
The convicts have already spent over 20 years in jail. Nalini, who was also sentenced to death, was granted mercy at the instance of Congress president Sonia Gandhi, widow of late Rajiv Gandhi.
Rajiv Gandhi was assassinated in 1991 by a woman human bomber of the Lankan Tamil separatist outfit LTTE by reaching him to greet with a bomb strapped to her body during a rally at Sriperumbudur in Tamil Nadu. For years, the case has been linked to Tamil sentiment and the state parties in the state have campaigned for the convicts’ release.
