New
Delhi, Wednesday, 18.5.2022
The Supreme Court Wednesday
ordered the release of Rajiv Gandhi assassination convict A G Perarivalan,
exercising its powers under Article 142 of the Constitution. A bench of
Justices L Nageswara Rao and B R Gavai said that the Tamil Nadu Cabinet had in
September 2018 recommended his release to the Governor taking into account
relevant considerations.
Article 142 enables the court
to pass orders to do complete justice in a case.
It said that any delay on the
part of the Governor to decide on the exercise of powers under Article 161 to
grant pardon, remission of sentence etc is subject to judicial review.
In his plea, Perarivalan had
said the Governor was yet to take a call on a recommendation by the state
government on September 9, 2018, to grant him remission and release him
forthwith.
As the hearing in the Supreme
Court proceeded, Solicitor General Tushar Mehta informed the court that the
Governor after considering all facts on record and perusing all relevant
documents had recorded that the “President is the appropriate competent
authority to deal with the…request”.
Perarivalan, however,
contended that he had already spent 30 years in jail and that the Governor’s
decision must be placed on record.
Arrested at the age of 19,
Perarivalan was sentenced to death in May 1999 after being convicted for
purchasing the 8-volt battery that was used by the assassins to trigger the
belt bomb that killed former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi. In 2014, his sentence
and that of two others, Murugan and Santhan (both Sri Lankans), was commuted to
life citing the long pendency of their mercy petitions. Soon after, the AIADMK
government in Tamil Nadu had ordered the release of all the seven convicts in
the case.