Rajiv Gandhi case convicts to visit Sri Lankan Deputy High Commission today

The Tiruchi Collector on Tuesday informed the Madras High Court of having fixed an appointment with the Sri Lankan Deputy High Commission in Chennai for former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi assassination case convicts Murugan, alias Sriharan; Robert Payas; and Jayakumar.

Appearing before a Division Bench of Justices R. Suresh Kumar and K. Kumaresh Babu, Additional Public Prosecutor R. Muniyapparaj said that all the three former convicts hailed from Sri Lanka and, hence, they required travel documents from the Deputy High Commission.

As they were now detained at a foreigners’ detention camp in Tiruchi, the Collector had written to the Deputy High Commission on March 8 seeking an appointment for them, and had received a reply on Monday to produce them (before the Deputy High Commission) on Wednesday afternoon. Necessary escort arrangements had been made to transport them from the camp around 5 a.m. on Wednesday, the APP said, urging the court to dispose of a writ petition connected with the issue.

One more released convict and the wife of Murugan, S. Nalini, had filed the writ petition through her counsel S. Doraisamy and V. Elangovan, seeking a direction to the Collector to permit her husband to visit the Deputy High Commission to get an allcountry passport so that they both could travel to the U.K.

The writ petitioner, an Indian national, told the court that she was pregnant when she was arrested in connection with the assassination case and delivered a girl in the prison. Her daughter was subsequently taken to Sri Lanka by her paternal grandparents, and was now living in the U.K.

Though the Supreme Court had, in 2022, ordered the premature release of all seven convicts in the case, her husband and three other Sri Lankan nationals were not let free and instead transferred to the foreigners’ detention camp for want of necessary travel documents.

Now that she and her husband decided to fly to the U.K., the petitioner sought permission for him to be produced before the Deputy High Commission to obtain an allcountry passport.

Though the relief sought was confined to Murugan, the APP told the court that the Collector had gone ahead and fixed an appointment for Robert Payas and Jayakumar too since they too were Sri Lankan nationals and required travel documents to fly back to their country.

The judges recorded the submission and disposed of Nalini’s writ petition. Another Sri Lankan national Santhan, alias T. Suthenthirarajah, was the first to obtain a travel document to fly to Sri Lanka.

However, he died recently in Chennai and only his mortal remains could be flown to Sri Lanka.