Tamil Nadu government to HC: Governor sent files about release of Rajiv Gandhi assassination convicts to President

Advocate General of Tamil Nadu, R Shunmugasundaram, made the submission following a direction a week ago from the high court to find out whether the Governor had forwarded the state Cabinet recommendation from 2018 for the convicts’ release to the President.

Following the latest submission, the bench comprising Chief Justice Munishwar Nath Bhandari and Justice D Bharatha Chakravarthy asked the Advocate General to ascertain the date on which the matter was referred to the President. The case was then adjourned for a week.

The high court was hearing a petition by Nalini, a convict in the case. Her petition requested the court to declare as “unconstitutional” the delay from the Governor’s office in taking a call on the state Cabinet decision that was made on September 9, 2018, for the release of all seven convicts. The AIADMK Cabinet at the time had decided the matter under Article 161 of the Constitution, and had forwarded the same for the Governor’s signature. Nalini’s counsel argued that the Governor committed contempt of Supreme Court orders by delaying the decision.

Citing an order by a Constitution bench of the Supreme Court in Maru Ram vs Union of India (1980), which stated that the advice of the state government under Article 161 of the Constitution binds the Governor, Nalini’s petition said: “When the advice is binding, the Governor of Tamil Nadu, a constitutional functionary, has no discretion whatsoever but to act immediately in accordance with the advice of the council of ministers of the state of Tamil Nadu. In other words, I ought to have been released the next day, i.e on September 10, 2018.”

A G Perarivalan, another convict in the case, walked out of prison last month after the Supreme Court granted him bail.

Nalini was 23 year old and working as a stenographer for a private company when she was arrested in June 1991. Her husband, Murugan, was among the seven sentenced to life imprisonment in the case. She was pregnant when she was arrested a month after Rajiv Gandhi’s assassination. She delivered a daughter in prison.

Nalini was sentenced to death in 1999 by the Supreme Court, but Justice K T Thomas, who headed the bench, had written a dissent note against the majority verdict. Her death sentence was commuted to life imprisonment in 2000.