Rajiv assassination case: TN slams Cong-led UPA govts

“Why UPA-I and UPA-II did not hang the killers of Rajiv Gandhi in ten years of its rule?” the counsel for Tamil Nadu asked a five-judge Constitution bench headed by Chief Justice H L Dattu.

The bench, also comprising Justices F M I Kalifulla, Pinaki Chandra Ghosh, Abhay Manohar Sapre and <g data-gr-id="64">U U</g> Lalit, is going into the maintainability of the Centre’s petition opposing Tamil Nadu government’s decision to set free the convicts after remitting their life sentences in the Rajiv Gandhi assassination case.

Senior advocate Rakesh Dwivedi, appearing for the state government, said Tamil Nadu has been wrongly accused of taking a “political, arbitrary and whimsical” decision.

“Politics is not the dirty world. All political parties said don’t hang them. People, all MLAs, <g data-gr-id="59">opposition</g> were against the hanging,” he said.

“How could it be ignored that none from the opposition raised objection,” he said, adding that the Central government, which did not take a decision on their mercy pleas during 2000-2012, cannot accuse the state dispensation of arbitrariness.

“You listen, consider the mercy pleas, and do not hang them. Then you are merciful. When we do this, then it becomes arbitrary and whimsical,” Dwivedi said.

The apex court had on June 28 rejected the curative petition of the Centre against the commutation of <g data-gr-id="51">death</g> penalty into life imprisonment of three convicts in the case.

The review <g data-gr-id="58">pleas</g>, challenging the commutation of death penalty to life term of Santhan, Murugan and Perarivalan, were dismissed by the court in February last year on the ground of 11-year delay in deciding their mercy petitions.

The three convicts are lodged in a Vellore prison. Former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi was assassinated on May 21, <g data-gr-id="53">1991</g> at Sriperumbudur in Tamil Nadu.

During the day-long hearing, Dwivedi said the state is empowered to consider changes in “factual and material circumstances” of the case and the convicts. 

The killing of the former Prime Minister was “diabolic”, but after <g data-gr-id="62">twenty five</g> years the facts like age, health and other facts of the convicts required to be looked into, Dwivedi said.

“It cannot be the case that life (imprisonment) is life without a ray of hope,” he said.

The court would resume hearing on Wednesday.

Earlier, the Centre had asserted that the killers of Gandhi did not deserve to be shown any mercy as the assassination was the result of a conspiracy involving foreign nationals.

Among the seven convicts, V Sriharan alias Murugan, Santhan, Robert Pious and Jaya Kumar Are Sri Lankan nationals, while female convict Nalini, Ravichandran and Arivu are Indians.

The court, on a plea of the erstwhile UPA government, had on February 20 last year stayed the state government’s decision to release Murugan, Santhan and Arivu, whose death sentences had been commuted to life term by it two days before.

It had later also stayed the release of four other convicts Nalini, Robert Pious, Jayakumar and Ravichandran, noting there were procedural lapses on the part of the state government.

Santhan, Murugan and Arivu are currently lodged in the Central Prison, Vellore. The other four are also undergoing life sentence for their role in Gandhi’s assassination on May 21, 1991.