Rajiv Gandhi assassination case: SC says TN govt can't release convicts

NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court on Wednesday said that the Tamil Nadu government cannot release former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi's killers without consent from the Centre.

A five-judge Constitution bench headed by Chief Justice H L Dattu, who would be demitting office on Wednesday, authoritatively dealt with questions raised by the smaller bench in the sensational case.

The bench, also comprising justices FMI Kalifulla, Pinaki Chandra Ghosh, Abhay Manohar Sapre and UU Lalit, had reserved the judgment on August 12 after hearing for eleven days the arguments advanced by Solicitor General Ranjit Kumar, who appeared for the Centre, and others including senior advocates Ram Jethmalani and Rakesh Dwivedi, representing V Sriharan alias Murugan, one of the seven convicts, and Tamil Nadu government respectively. The court would be dealing with seven issues framed by the smaller bench on the scope of the Executive's power of remission.

The centre had earlier asserted that the killers of former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi did not deserve any mercy as the assassination was the result of a conspiracy involving foreign nationals.

The Tamil Nadu government, on the other hand, had asserted the states have power to grant remission under the law and trashed accusations that its decision to release seven convicts in the Rajiv Gandhi assassination case was "political and arbitrary".

The state government had wanted to know as to why Congress governments at the centre delayed the decision on their mercy pleas that led to commutation of their death sentence in the first place.

Jethmalani, who had appeared for one of the convicts, had sought dismissal of Centre's plea, contending that the citizens could file writ petitions for enforcement of their fundamental rights and "Union of India is not a citizen but State under Article 12; it has no such rights vested in it". The apex court had on February 20 last year stayed the state government's decision to release three convicts - Murugan, Santhan and Arivu, whose death sentence had been commuted to life term by it two days before.

Santhan, Murugan and Arivu are currently lodged in the Central Prison, Vellore. The other four are also undergoing life sentence for their role in Gandhi's assassination on May 21, 1991 in Sriperumbudur, Tamil Nadu.