The Supreme Court ordered release of AG Perarivalan, convict in the Rajiv Gandhi assassination case on Thursday, invoking powers under Article 142 of the Constitution. A bench comprising Justices L Nageswara Rao and BR Gavai observed that the Tamil Nadu State Cabinet took the decision to grant remission to Perarivalan on relevant considerations.
The bench further said that the inordinate delay by the Tamil Nadu governor in exercising his powers under Article 161 of the Constitution can be subject to judicial review. The Bench passed the aforesaid order in a plea filed by A.G. Perarivalan, the life convict in the Rajiv Gandhi assassination case, seeking release from the prison based on the recommendation made by the State Government in September 2018.
As the Bench had reserved the judgment on 11.05.2022, it had made it clear that in the present order it would limit itself to the issue of the reference of the decision of the Council of Ministers of Tamil Nadu made by the Governor to the President. Through an order on March 9, 2022, the Supreme Court granted bail to AG Perarivalan. On April 27, 2022, the Supreme Court offered the Centre to release AG Perarivalan from jail since he served a sentence of more than three decades. In the hearing last week, the Centre drew flak from the court over its argument that in cases of grant of mercy, only the President would have exclusive powers.
On May 21, 1991, former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi (46) was assassinated in a suicide bombing during an election rally at Sriperumbudur of Tamil Nadu. He was killed along with 14 others in a suicide bombing reportedly carried out by Thenmozhi Rajaratnam (alias) Dhanu. In 1998, Perarivalan was sentenced to death by a TADA court along with 25 others for their role in the assassination of former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi.
Perarivalan was 19 years old at the time of the assassination and he was accused of buying two 9-volt batteries for Sivarasan, an LTTE member who was the mastermind behind the assassination. The two batteries were also used to assassinate Rajiv Gandhi, said the FIR. In 2014, the Supreme Court commuted the death sentence of seven convicts–S Nalini, Murugan, Santhan, AG Perarivalan, Jayakumar, Robert Payas and P Ravichandran–to life imprisonment and after two decades in prison, Perarivalan was first granted bail in March 2014. After the remission of the sentence, Perarivalan appealed for an early release from the prison.
In 2016 and 2018, former Tamil Nadu Chief Ministers J Jayalalithaa and Edappadi K Palaniswami recommended the release of all the seven convicts including Perarivalan. However, the respective then Governors refused to abide by the recommendation. They also forwarded the recommendation to the Governor after a delay. In 2018, the then Tamil Nadu cabinet recommended the release of 7 convicts in the Rajiv Gandhi Assassination case under article 161 of the constitution. Last year, Tamil Nadu Chief Minister MK Stalin also urged the President to release the convicts by accepting the State government’s recommendation in September 2018.
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