Supreme Court puts onus on Tamil Nadu governor for the release of seven Rajiv Gandhi assassination convicts

As the country celebrated a historic judgement by the apex court with the scrapping of section 377, there was another significant order passed. The Supreme Court's three judge-bench headed by justice Ranjan Gogoi passed a nationally significant order, which was pending for many years. 

The Supreme Court ordered that the Tamil Nadu Governor can take the decision to release the seven Rajiv Gandhi assassination convicts. including Perarivalan, Shantan, Nalini and Murugan who have been serving their sentence in Vellore central prison for almost 27 years.

Few days ago, the HMO told the apex court that it did not concur with the Tamil Nadu government’s view to release the seven assassination convicts in the case, saying the release of their sentence will set a bad example and it will have international ramifications. It said the case involved the assassination of a former Prime Minister in a brutal manner, in pursuance of a diabolical plot carefully conceived and executed by an external terrorist organisation.

The convicts then approached the apex court again to release them on the basis of a mercy petition & the center approached the top court against the decision of the state government to release the assassination convicts based on the above-mentioned implications.

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The bench on Thursday dismissed the petition of centre which was against the decision of Tamil Nadu government to release the Rajiv Gandhi assassination convicts & paved way for their release,  if the governor consents to it. The top court stated that the Tamil Nadu government could approach the governor who has been now given discretionary powers to take the call by exercising the special Powers under article 161.

Political leaders from Tamil Nadu including opposition leader and DMK president in his tweet welcomed the order of the Supreme Court and urged the state government to immediately call for a cabinet meeting and take a decision to release them.

Tamil Nadu senior minister Jayakumar said that they have taken the decision to release these convicts a long time ago when J Jayalalithaa was the Chief Minister.  

Sources close to TN government have told Republic TV that they might call for a cabinet meet soon to discuss and pass a resolution to release the seven convicts after which a proposal will also be sent to the Tamil Nadu governor Banwarilal Purohit to take the further steps.

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