New Delhi: The Supreme Court will hear on Thursday, February 27, the Centre’s plea against the Tamil Nadu Cabinet’s decision to free all seven convicted for the assassination of former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi.
The Supreme Court had last week commuted the death sentences of three convicts – Murugan, Santhan and Perarivalan – to life citing the 11-year delay in acting on their mercy pleas. The other four were serving life sentences. They are Nalini, Murugan’s wife whose death was commuted to life by Tamil Nadu governor in April 2000, and Robert Payas, Jeyakumar and Ravichandran, sentenced to death by the trial court but reduced to life by the Supreme Court in May 1999. All convicts are lodged in Vellore Central Jail since 1991.
The top court left it open for Tamil Nadu to grant remissions to them under the executive powers of the state government. Taking a swift decision after that Supreme Court’s verdict, Jayalalithaa announced two days later that her government would release all seven convicts.
Delhi reacted strongly to this with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh condemning the state’s decision, saying it was “legally untenable” and “contrary to all principles of justice”. Last Friday, the Centre also filed a review petition against the verdict.
Acting on the Centre’s petition two days ago, the court restrained Tamil Nadu from releasing three of the seven convicts, whose death sentences were commuted to life imprisonment. A bench led by Chief Justice P. Sathasivam had ordered the state to “maintain status quo prevailing as on date” in respect of convicts Murugan, Santhan and Perarivalan until March 6.
The court had also observed that the verdict to commute death sentence to life was passed on petitions by only those three men. Hence, no orders could be passed for the other four. The Centre was “justified” in approaching it, the court had said, adding, every state was expected to follow procedure and in case of a failure, the court can examine the dispute.
