SC to TN govt: Ask Guv about his decision on mercy pleas of Rajiv case convicts

New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Tuesday asked Tamil Nadu government to request the state governor to apprise it of his decision on the mercy plea of a convict in the Rajiv Gandhi assassination case.

A bench of justices L Nageswara Rao and Deepak Gupta gave this direction to the state government after it submitted to the bench that the state Cabinet has already passed a resolution and recommended to the governor to order premature release of all seven convicts in the case.

The Tamil Nadu government submitted to bench that it, however, does not have any information about the governor's decision on the mercy petitions filed by the convicts under Article 161 of the Constitution.

At this, the apex court bench asked the state government to itself ask the governor about his decision on mercy pleas of the convicts, observing that it cannot issue any direction to the governor.

The bench, however, observed that the governor "cannot sit indefinitely on a file".

The Article 161 empowers the governor to pardon a convict in any criminal case. The bench was hearing a plea of 46-year-old A G Perarivalan who has sought suspension of his life sentence in the case till the CBI-led Multi-Disciplinary Monitoring Agency (MDMA) probe is completed.