Guv may decide on pardon plea today

CHENNAI: A decision on the release of AG Perarivalan, one of seven convicts in the Rajiv Gandhi assassination case, is expected to be taken by Tamil Nadu governor Banwarilal Purohit by Friday, when a week’s time according to the Centre’s submission in the Supreme Court ends.

On January 21, solicitor general Tushar Mehta informed the apex court that the governor would take a decision in three or four days on Perarivalan’s plea but the court in its short order stated that it shall be considered in four weeks. On January 22, the court altered its order noting that Mehta submitted that Perarivalan’s application, which he filed with the governor in 2015, will be considered within a week. In 2018, the Supreme Court said that the governor was at liberty to decide on Perarivalan’s remission as he “deemed fit”. Following that, the Tamil Nadu cabinet unanimously passed a resolution for the premature release of the seven convicts in the 1991 case-- Perarivalan, Nalini Sriharan and her husband V Sriharan alias Murugan, Santhan, Jayakumar, Robert Payas and P Ravichandran who have been in prison for close to three decades. This has been pending with the governor since. The recommendation, including that of Perarivalan, is under Article 161 which empowers the governor to remit the sentence of a convict.

Perarivalan’s hopes were revived when the CBI in one of its affidavits told the top court last November that his release had nothing to do with the agency-led Multi-disciplinary Monitoring Agency (MMDA) probing the larger conspiracy into the case. The governor was said to be waiting for an MMDA report. “There doesn’t seem to be room for any more delays now,” says one of Perarvialan’s counsel’s K Sivakumar. “We had come so close to finding closure in this case before but it didn’t happen, dashing the hopes of his family...”