New Delhi:
In a setback for Tamil Nadu government, the Supreme Court today stayed the release of seven people convicted of killing former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi. The decision came on Centre's plea to put on hold Tamil Nadu's plan to release all the convicts. The Jayalalithaa government had sanctioned their release contending that these convicts had been acquitted of the charges slapped under the Terrorist and Disruptive Activities (Prevention) Act, or TADA, a central law, and it was not bound to seek the Centre's concurrence before setting them free.
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The Centre has also filed a review petition against the Supreme Court's order sparing three of the convicts, Murugan, Santhan and Perarivalan, from execution.
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh today said Tamil Nadu's plan to release seven people convicted of killing former prime minister Rajiv Gandhi was legally untenable and contrary to all principles of justice. (Read more)
Harithra Sriharan, the 22-year-old daughter of Murugan and Nalini, convicted in the assassination case, has sought forgiveness from the former prime minister's son Rahul Gandhi. "I have suffered the same punishment. I deserve to be with my parents,'' she told NDTV over phone from the United Kingdom. (Read more)
Mr Gandhi, the Congress vice president, said on Wednesday that he was saddened by the decision to free his father's killers. "I am personally against death penalty. But if a Prime Minister's killers are being set free, what justice can the common man expect?" he said.
Chief Minister Jayalalithaa had given the Centre three days to respond to her decision to free the convicts, after which, she said, she would use her powers to do so. (Read more)
The Centre says Tamil Nadu faulted on due process by deciding unilaterally, since Rajiv Gandhi's assassination was investigated by a central agency, CBI, under a central law, TADA.
Soon after, the ruling party condemned the Jayalalithaa government's decision as "perverse, irresponsible and populist."
The Supreme Court had on Tuesday commuted the death sentence conferred on the three convicts, and left it to the state to decide on freeing the convicts, who have been in jail for 23 years.
Murugan's wife Nalini Sriharan was granted mercy in 2000 on the intervention of Rajiv Gandhi's widow, Congress president Sonia Gandhi.
Rajiv Gandhi was assassinated in 1991 by a woman operative of the Lankan Tamil separatist outfit LTTE, who greeted him with a bomb strapped to her chest during a rally in Sriperumbudur in Tamil Nadu.
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