If Centre doesn’t respond in three days, killers to be released; Jaya hopes to reap electoral dividends
Just a day after the Supreme Court commuted the death penalty of three Rajiv Gandhi’s killers — Santhan, Murugan and Perarivalan — the Tamil Nadu Government on Wednesday decided to release them, along with four more convicts undergoing life term in the case. Nalini (Murugan’s wife), Ravichandran, Robert Payas and V Jayakumar (all lTTE activists) are the other four undergoing life term since their arrest in 1991.
Chief Minister Jayalalithaa herself made the suo motu statement in the State Assembly about the politically controversial decision of her Cabinet, which met earlier in the day. She said the decision was in response to the suggestion by the Supreme Court that the State Government could exercise its power under Section 432 (power to remit sentences) and 433 A (dealing with release of prisoners sentenced to death or life) of the Criminal Procedure Code.
“We invoked Section 432 and 435 of the CrPC. The decision will be intimated to the Union Government and we will wait for three days. If the Centre fails to respond within three days, we will go ahead and release the prisoners under the powers conferred on us by the Constitution,” Jayalalithaa said in the House.
Jayalalithaa’s decision to release all the seven accused in the Rajiv Gandhi assassination case is expected to bring rich political dividends to the AIADMK in the upcoming lok Sabha elections. Since she came back to power in 2011, Jayalalithaa has been campaigning strongly for the commutation of death sentences of the three. The Tamil Nadu legislative Assembly had passed a resolution moved by Jayalalithaa in 2011 asking the Centre to commute the death sentences awarded to Santhan, Murugan and Perarivalan.
S Doraisamy, advocate, Madras High Court, who appeared for the accused in the Rajiv Gandhi assassination case, said Jayalalithaa has taken a bold step and has to be appreciated. “She need not have approached the Union Government since Article 161 of the Constitution has granted power to the State for remission,” said Doraisamy.
It is a second life for Santhan, Pearivalan and Murugan as they were about to face the gallows in 2011. The Tamil Nadu Special TADA Court, which heard the Rajiv Gandhi assassination case, had awarded death penalty to all the 26 accused in the case.
The apex court upheld the death sentences of Santhan, Perarivalan, Murugan and Nalini in May 1999. Nalini, got a reprieve in 2000 when her sentence was reduced to life term following the intervention of Congress president Sonia Gandhi.
Though the trio appealed to the President of India for clemency, their plea was rejected by Pratibha Patil, the then President. Following the Presidential rejection of the mercy petition, the authorities in the high security Vellore Central Prison made elaborate arrangements for the execution of the three. When this reporter visited Vellore in the first week of September 2011, security was being beefed up around the jail as well as the city in a prelude to the hangings. Since there was no hangman around, one policeman had been earmarked to execute the three.
But the trio approached the Madras High Court with the plea that in the backdrop of the inordinate delay in the rejection of their plea for mercy, they may be saved from the gallows. The court stayed the hanging for eight weeks and asked the Union Government to furnish the reasons for the delay in rejecting the mercy petition filed by the convicts. In May 2012, the petitions were transferred to the Supreme Court as the apex court felt that a fair hearing may not be possible in Chennai because of the surcharged atmosphere. Tuesday’s Supreme Court order commuting the death sentences was a sequel to the petition filed by Santhan, Murugan and Perartivalan.
Taking a dig at her arch rival and DMK chief M Karunanidhi, Jayalalithaa charged that the self-styled leader of the Tamils has done nothing to save Santhan, Murugan and Perarivalan from the gallows though he was the Chief Minister for two terms after the confirmation of death sentences on the three.