Chennai: The Madras High Court has ordered issuance of notice to the Tamilnadu government on a plea filed by S Nalini, one of the seven life convicts in the former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi assassination case, seeking direction to the State to release her without wainting for the Governor’s nod.
When the writ petition filed by Ms Nalini came up for hearing the First Bench of Chief Justice Sanjib Banerjee and Justice P A Audikesavulu directed the State government to file its counter after the Dusheera vacation.
In her plea, Nalini sought to declare as unconstitutional the Governor’s ‘failure’ to release her as per the 9 September, 2018 State Cabinet reoslution recommending to the Governor to release all the seven convicts under Article 161 of the Constitution.
During the hearing, Nalini counsel M Radhakrishnan contended that the Governor was bound to act as per the recommendations of the Council of Ministers and nor otherwise.
She submitted that after her death was committed to life, about 3,800 life convicts, who had served either 10 years of imprisonment or even less were released under Article 161 of the Constitution because of their good conduct in prison.
She also contended that though she was eligible for such a premature release in 2001 itself, her name was not considered at all by stating as the case was investigated by the Central Bureau of Investigation and that acts as a disqualification.
Nevertheless, the State Cabinet resolution recommending the release of the seven life convicts was binding upon the Governor who had to ‘no discretion whatsoever’ but to act in accordance with the aid and advice of the Council of Ministers.
After her two earlier pleas–one directing the state government to implement the Cabinet recommendation and the other seeking a direction to the Governor to countersign the Cabinet recommendation–were dismissed by the High Court in 2019, Nalini has now filed a third writ petition seeking to declare that the Governor’s ‘failure’ to act in accordance with the recommendation was unconstitutional.
Besides Nalini, the other life convicts are her husband Murugan, A G Perarivalan, Santhan, Jayakumar, Ravichandran and Robert Pyas.
All the seven were convicted by a special TADA court for their role in the assassination of Rajiv Gandhi on 21 May, 1991 during an election rally at Sriperumbudur near here and sentenced to death on 28 January, 1998, which was upheld by the Supreme court on 11 May, 1999. However, their death sentences were commuted to life imprisonment by the Governor on 24 April, 2000.
It may be recalled that various political parties, including the ruling AIADMK and the Opposition AIADMK, which had recommended their release through a State Cabinet resolution, had been consistently demanding the release of all the seven convicts, citing the prolong delay by the Raj Bhavan. However, the Governor office had said that the recommendation was forwarded to the President.