Shivani Gadhavi –
Published on: December 07, 2021 at 15:30 IST
The Supreme Court of India on December 7th, 2021 adjourned the hearing of the convict in the case of assassination of Former Prime Minister of India Rajiv Gandhi- A.G. Perarivalan’s early release plea. The next hearing of the petition is shifted to January, 2022.
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.
The convict is yet to be released even after it was the recommended by the Council of Ministers of Government of Tamil Nadu on September 9th, 2018. Hence, a question arises in the Apex Court which is about the Tamil Nadu Governor’s decision who referred the case of Perarivalan’s to the President.
In the petition it was pointed out by the convict’s lawyers, “After sleeping over for five years in the Article 161 (pardon) petition and sitting over the recommendation of the State Cabinet to release the petitioner for more than a good two-and-a-half years, the Union of India, on February 4, has filed an affidavit [in the Supreme Court] stating that the Governor has sent the petition to the President, whereas the law is clear that Governor does not have independent discretion.”
The case was adjourned because of a prior commitment of the Solicitor-General of India Tushar Mehta. Perarivalan expressed his disappointment with the adjournment and stated, “under the hangman’s noose for 16 years and [had spent] 29 years in solitary confinement out of the total 30 years of incarceration”.