The Supreme Court will decide today whether the seven convicts in the Rajiv Gandhi assassination case, viz Murugan, Santhan, Periarivalan (whose death sentence was commuted to life sentence) and that of Nalini, Robert Pius, Jayakumar and Ravichandran, serving life term in the case, can be released by the Tamil Nadu government by granting remission.
In 2014, the apex court had stayed their release on a petition filed by the Centre that the Tamil Nadu government had not consulted them before passing an order of release in exercise of its remission powers.
A five-judge Constitution bench comprising the Chief Justice H.L. Dattu and Justices Ibrahim Kalifulla, A.M. Sapre, Pinaki Ghose and U.U. Lalit had reserved the verdict on August 12 after a marathon hearing on all issues relating to life sentence.
The bench in its judgment on Wednesday will decide a host of issues including whether a state government can exercise its remission power in cases investigated by the CBI; whether any restriction can be imposed on the state when it had voluntarily entrusted the probe to the CBI; whether such a remission be granted even in cases where the President of India had already granted mercy and commuted death sentence into life sentence; what is the meaning and scope of life term, is it a fixed term of 14, 18, 20 years or life sentence till the death of the convicts.
On February 18, 2014 the apex court commuted death sentence of three convicts. The next day the Tamil Nadu government ordered the release of seven life convicts including four who were awarded a life sentence. The Centre rushed to the court on February 20, 2014 and their release was stayed.
TN had justified the state’s decision to grant remission to the seven convicts. It said the decision was taken pursuant to this court’s judgment. It said “the letter of Tamil Nadu Government to Union of India to release them is only a proposal and part of the consultation process and the Centre could have raised its objections to the proposal. The Union of India should have indicated its stand to the Tamil Nadu Government.”
The Union’s submission that no remission can be granted by the state if accepted would have horrendous consequences. Tamil Nadu had argued that it was the appropriate government for the purpose of granting remission even though the case was investigated by the CBI.
