Rajiv Gandhi Assassination: The Supreme Court released Nalini Sriharan, R P Ravichandran, and four other people serving life sentences in the Rajiv Gandhi assassination case on Friday. The Supreme Court ordered the release of all six convicts facing life in prison in the Rajiv Gandhi assassination case.
Nalini, PR Ravichandran, Robert Pias, Suthendraraja, Jaykumar, and Sriharan were all released as part of the order.
The bench, which included justices BR Gavai and BV Nagarathna, issued the order while considering the case of A G Perarivalan, another convict in the case who was released in May this year after the court exercised its extraordinary power under Article 142 of the Constitution.
My statement on the decision of the Supreme Court to free the remaining killers of former PM Shri. Rajiv Gandhi pic.twitter.com/ErwqnDGZLc
— Jairam Ramesh (@Jairam_Ramesh) November 11, 2022
The Supreme Court observed that the criteria established for Perarivalan were met even in the cases of the remaining convicts.
The bench noted that the Tamil Nadu cabinet recommended their release on September 9, 2018, and that this recommendation will be binding on the Governor, before whom the convicts had filed remission petitions.
The bench also noted that the convicts had spent over three decades in prison and that their behaviour in prison was satisfactory, noting that they were found to have good behaviour and that all of them had obtained various degrees during their time in prison.
Rajiv Gandhi, India’s former Prime Minister, was assassinated on the night of May 21, 1991, at a poll rally in Sriperumbudur, Tamil Nadu, by a female suicide bomber.
A TADA Court sentenced 25 people to death for the assassination of Rajiv Gandhi in 1998. The Supreme Court, on the other hand, acquitted 19 convicts and upheld the death sentences of four convicts (Perarivalan, Sriharan, Santhan, and Nalini), while sentencing three others to life in prison.