Former PM Rajiv Gandhi assassination case convict Nalini Sriharan has moved the vacation court of the Madras High Court seeking to direct the Tamil Nadu Governor to countersign the resolution forwarded by the State Cabinet in September last year allowing the release of all 7 convicts.
Nalini
Chennai:
Based on a government scheme for the premature release of life convicts who had completed 20 years of actual imprisonment by an order dated November 10, 1994 on humanitarian grounds, the TN government had advised the Governor to release her and six life convicts convicted in the Rajiv Gandhi assassination case. The Governor has failed to act on the advice tendered by the council of ministers despite the passing of more than seven months, the plea said.
Moreover, on citing the Supreme Court’s ruling in Maru Ram vs Union of India that the power under Articles 72 and 161 of the Constitution can be exercised by the Central and State governments and not by the President or Governor on their own, the plea said, "The advice of the appropriate Government binds the head of the State”. The petition also said the failure of the Governor to countersign the proposal within a reasonable time would amount to a violation. “It is the Governor’s duty to preserve the constitutional values and the inordinate delay of more than seven months would amount to the failure of the constitutional machinery,” she said. Nalini’s plea is set to be taken up for hearing either on Wednesday or Thursday.
She has submitted in her plea that her death sentence was commuted to imprisonment for life by the TN government on April 24, 2000. In view of this, she was treated as a life convict from the date of her conviction viz January 28, 1998. Moreover, after her death sentence was commuted to life imprisonment, about 3,700 life convicts who had served 10 years of imprisonment and less were released by the State government.
Based on a government scheme for the premature release of life convicts who had completed 20 years of actual imprisonment by an order dated November 10, 1994 on humanitarian grounds, the TN government had advised the Governor to release her and six life convicts convicted in the Rajiv Gandhi assassination case. The Governor has failed to act on the advice tendered by the council of ministers despite the passing of more than seven months, the plea said.
Moreover, on citing the Supreme Court’s ruling in Maru Ram vs Union of India that the power under Articles 72 and 161 of the Constitution can be exercised by the Central and State governments and not by the President or Governor on their own, the plea said, "The advice of the appropriate Government binds the head of the State”. The petition also said the failure of the Governor to countersign the proposal within a reasonable time would amount to a violation. “It is the Governor’s duty to preserve the constitutional values and the inordinate delay of more than seven months would amount to the failure of the constitutional machinery,” she said. Nalini’s plea is set to be taken up for hearing either on Wednesday or Thursday.