Tamil Nadu CM MK Stalin appeals to President Ram Nath Kovind to remit life sentence of convicts in Rajiv Gandhi assassination case

Chennai: Tamil Nadu Chief Minister MK Stalin urged President Ram Nath Kovind to settle for the State Government`s suggestion in September 2018 and cross orders to remit the life sentences of all of the seven convicts in the Rajiv Gandhi assassination case.

In the letter, Stalin requested the President to direct their speedy launch and argued that the convicts have been ‘undergoing the agony of imprisonment for about three decades’.

The letter talked about the convicts – S Nalini, Murugan, Santhan, AG Perarivalan, Jayakumar, Robert Payas, and P Ravichandran. 

The Chief Minister identified the unique dying sentences of Nalini and three others had been commuted by the Supreme Court to life imprisonment. 

“The majority of political parties in Tamil Nadu have been requesting the remission of the remainder of their sentences and for the immediate release of all the 7 convicts… This is also the will of the people of Tamil Nadu,” the letter learn. 

He additional reminded that the identical had been requested by the Tamil Nadu authorities on September 9, 2018. 

“The purported obstacle for exercise of the power of remission was the pendency of the investigation by the Multi-Disciplinary Monitoring Agency of CBI,” the Chief Minister wrote, including that it has been clarified by the respective stands of the Union Government and CBI earlier than the Supreme Court that there is no such thing as a connection between the remission of the sentence and investigation. 

He additional mentioned that the seven had already suffered `untold hardship and agony in the previous three a long time` and had paid a `heavy worth`. 

“There has already been an inordinate delay in the consideration of their pleas for remission,” he wrote, mentioning that in the current COVID-19 pandemic state of affairs, courts have been additionally recognising the necessity to decongest prisons.

Gandhi was assassinated on the evening of May 21, 1991 at Sriperumbudur in Tamil Nadu by a suicide bomber, recognized as Dhanu, at a ballot rally.

(With inputs from information company ANI) 

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