Centre sends fresh missive to TN govt against releasing Rajiv’s assassins

NEW DELHI: The Centre on Friday sent a second urgent communication to the Tamil Nadu government, asking it not to release any of the seven convicts in the Rajiv Gandhi assassination case.

The clarification was sent following legal advice as the Centre was apprehensive that the state may treat the case of Murugan, Santhan and Perarivalan differently from four others already undergoing life term in the case.

Tamil Nadu chief minister J Jayalalithaa had announced her intention to set free the convicts after the Supreme Court had commuted the death sentences of three of them on February 18. In compliance with the Section 435 of CrPC, the state sought the Centre’s view but Jayalalithaa also set a three-day deadline for the reply.

“Since the deadline was ending on Friday midnight and the Supreme Court had dealt with the issue of only three convicts while hearing the Centre’s review petition, the government thought it prudent to send another communication to the state government,” said a source. Confusion remained on the status of Nalini, Robert Pious, Jayakumar and Ravichandran, whose life imprisonment was also commuted by the state government.

On Friday, the Centre filed a petition seeking review the court’s Tuesday’s judgment commuting the death sentence. “We have pleaded that the SC failed to consider the merits of the case and ventured into the domain of the government,” said solicitor general Mohan Parasaran. Centre has also taken the plea that the court could not have given a free hand to the state to remit the sentence and that it should have strictly commuted death to life sentence.