Justice L. A bench headed by Nageswara Rao, exercising its privilege under Article 142, ordered the release of Perarivalan. Justice BR Gavai is also included in the bench.
The bench said the Tamil Nadu cabinet had in September 2018 recommended his release to the governor keeping in view the relevant considerations.
The bench said, “The state cabinet took its decision on the basis of relevant deliberations. It would be appropriate to release the guilty using Article 142.
Article 142 of the Constitution gives the Supreme Court the privilege, under which its decision is considered to be of paramount importance until no other law is enforced in the matter concerned.
It also states that any delay on the part of the Governor on the exercise of powers under Article 161 for clemency, remission of sentence, etc., is subject to judicial review.
AG Perarivalan, the assassin of former prime minister Rajiv Gandhi, was granted bail by the court on March 9 after observing that no complaint was received regarding his conduct while serving sentence and parole.
The top court was hearing 47-year-old Perarivalan’s plea seeking suspension of his life sentence till the completion of the investigation by the ‘Multi-Disciplinary Monitoring Agency’ (MDMA).
According to the Indian Express report, Perarivalan had said in his petition that the governor has not yet taken any decision on the state government’s recommendation on September 9, 2018 to exempt him and release him immediately.
As the hearing in the Supreme Court proceeded, Solicitor General Tushar Mehta informed the court that the Governor, after considering all the facts on record and perusing all relevant documents, had noted that ‘the President is the appropriate competent authority to deal with this request’. Huh.’
However, Perarivalan had argued that he had already spent 30 years in jail and the governor’s decision should be kept on record.
On March 9, the Supreme Court had granted bail to Perarivalan.
The top court in its order had said, “There is no dispute regarding the fact that the petitioner has spent 32 years in jail. We have been informed that he has been released on parole thrice before and no complaint was received against him during that time.
The court had also taken cognizance of the submission that Perarivalan is presently on parole and there is sufficient evidence of his good conduct during the long period of sentence.
On May 21, 1991, a female suicide bomber blew herself up during an election rally in Sriperumbudur, Tamil Nadu, killing former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi. The woman was identified as Dhanu.
14 others including Dhanu had died. Gandhi’s assassination was probably the first such incident in the country in which a suicide bomb was used to kill a top leader.
The seven convicts in the Rajiv Gandhi assassination case are Nalini Sriharan, Murugan, Santhan, AG Perarivalan, Jayakumar, Robert Payas and P. Ravichandran.
The court in its May 1999 order had upheld the death sentence awarded to the four convicts, Perarivalan, Murugan, Santhan and Nalini.
According to the report, Perarivalan, who was arrested at the age of 19, was sentenced to death in May 1999 after being convicted for purchasing an eight-volt battery, which was used by the killers to carry the belt bomb that killed former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi. had to trigger.
In 2014, the sentence of him and two others, Murugan and Santhan (both Sri Lankans), was commuted to life imprisonment citing the pendency of their mercy petitions. The court had decided to commute the death sentence to life imprisonment on the basis of the delay of 11 years in disposal of their mercy petitions by the central government.
Subsequently, in 2015, a mercy petition moved by Perarivalan was not considered by the Governor. In September 2018, a Supreme Court order on a related petition clarified that the governor was ‘deemed appropriate’ to decide on the pardon. Within three days, the then AIADMK government had recommended the release of all the seven convicts.
(with input from news agency language)
read this also…
Categories: india special