Chennai: The Madras High Court today questioned the delay over Tamilnadu Governor Banwarilal Purohit taking a decision on the release of seven convicts in former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi assassination case.
“How long a decision in this regard can be delayed,” the court asked and added that only because those in Constitutional posts would take decisions at right time, no time frame was fixed for them
It also directed the government to reply on granting parole to one of the convicts Perarivalan and the release of all seven.
It may be recalled that several political parties in the State had been demanding the early release of all the seven convicts–Nalini, her husband V Sriharan alias Murugan, A G Perarivalan, T Suthendraraja alais Santhan, Jayakumar, Robert Payas, Ravichandran–based on the resolution of the State Cabinet.
When the issue was raised by the Opposition DMK during the Assembly session in March this year, Law Minister C Ve Shanmugam said the State Cabinet had adopted a resolution on 9 September, 2018 recommending their release to Governor Banwarilal Purohit under Article 161 of the Constitution.
Since no decision was taken by the Raj Bhavan, a reminder was sent to the Governor’s Secretariat, which in its reply to the government, said the Governor would take a final decision (on the Cabinet resolution) based on the report to be submitted in the Supreme Court by the Multi Disciplinary Monitoring Agency (MDMA), comprising several investigating agencies, including the CBI, which was still probing the case.