New Delhi: The Supreme Court has given a big verdict on the Rajiv Gandhi assassination case on Friday. The court has ordered the release of all the 6 convicts. These include Nalini Sriharan and RP Ravichandran. All of them are serving life imprisonment.
On May 18, the Supreme Court had ordered the release of the convict Perarivalan in this case. The rest of the convicts had also demanded release from the court citing the same order. Both Nalini and Ravichandran have spent more than 30 years in jail.
The Tamil Nadu government had earlier recommended their release to the Governor, the Supreme Court noted while ordering their release.
Besides Nalini, the others jailed for the 1991 assassination of former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi were Sriharan, Santhan, Murugan, Robert Payas and Ravichandran.
Sonia had forgiven Nalini: When Nalini was arrested for Rajiv Gandhi's assassination, she was pregnant. It had been two months since her pregnancy. Then Sonia Gandhi forgave Nalini. She had said that how can an innocent child be punished for the mistake of Nalini, who has not yet come into the world.
Earlier also there were efforts to release the convicts: In the Rajiv Gandhi assassination case, the trial court had given death sentence to 26 convicts involved in the conspiracy. In May 1999, the Supreme Court acquitted 19 people.
Four of the remaining seven accused (Nalini, Murugan alias Sriharan, Santhan and Perarivalan) were sentenced to death and the rest (Ravichandran, Robert Payas and Jayakumar) were given life imprisonment.
On the mercy petition of the four, the Tamil Nadu Governor commuted Nalini's death sentence to life imprisonment. The mercy petition of the rest of the accused was rejected by the President in 2011.
No comments:
Post a Comment