Munmun Kaur-
Published On: December 08, 2021 at 11:21 IST
Former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi’s Murder Convict AG Perarivalan, who played the role of supplying batteries used in the bomb that led to the assassination filed a Mercy plea before the Tamil Nadu Governor in 2015. But the matter was not acknowledged for 5 years.
The plea by the 46-year-old A.G. Perarivalan was filed in 2016 who sought the suspension of his life imprisonment sentence in the case which is led by the Multi-disciplinary Monitoring Agency (MDMA) of the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), which is yet to be concluded over a possibility of a larger conspiracy behind the assassination.
In January 2021, the Governor on the grounds that the competent Authority to decide on Perarivalan’s remission was the President, forwarded the matter to the Centre. The matter has been Adjourned twice and only came up for hearing on Tuesday i.e. December 07.
The Centre informed the Court that the matter will be taken up in accordance with the Law and that no time frame was proposed for taking a decision. This comes in contrast with what Senior Advocate Gopal Shankarnaraynan, representing Perarivalan told the Court, “The Governor is not a party to the proceedings filed by Perarivalan. However, on January 21, the governor intervened in the proceedings through solicitor general Tushar Mehta and informed that the mercy plea will be decided within a week”.
Addressing the matter, a Bench headed by Justice L Nageswara Rao stated, “This matter has been pending for a long time. Decide it, we will post it in January next year.”
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