Tamil Nadu Governor will take a favourable decision, says law minister

Chennai: The state government has exuded confidence that Governor Banwarilal Purohit would make a favourable decision on freeing the Rajiv Gandhi convicts.

Law minister C. Ve. Shanmugam said he had hopes that the governor would make a favourable decision. “Acting as per the Supreme Court directive (in September) the Tamil Nadu Cabinet met and passed a resolution recommending to the governor to release all the seven convicts in the Rajiv Gandhi assassination case under Article 161 of the Constitution,” he told reporters here on Tuesday.

He however declined to respond to a query on the Union Home Ministry informing A. G. Perarivalan, one of the life convicts, that the Central government has not framed any Remission rules for his premature release.

 Nearly three years after the convict sought information on remission rules through an application filed under RTI Act, 2005, on January eight, 2016, Manas Mondal, under secretary to the government, ministry of home affairs (judicial cell) in his November 8 reply, said as per the information available with the Central Public Information Officer (CPIO), no remission rules were framed by the Central government under Article 72/73 or under Sec 432 to 435 of Cr. PC in the light of the Constitutional bench Judgment of Supreme Court dated December two, 2015.

Responding to four queries of Perarivalan, who has been lodged in Vellore Central Prison for the last 27 years, Mondal, in a letter to him, said, “hence the reply for query one to three of your RTI application may be treated as Nil please.”

As regard to the fourth query seeking copies of the number of remissions granted by the Centre from January one, 2010 to December 31, 2015 across the country, he said the information was not readily available with the CPIO in the desired format and the same was being compiled. “Once compiled, the information would be provided shortly,” he added.