A day after the Supreme Court declined to stay the release of four out of seven convicts in the Rajiv Gandhi assassination case, the central government Friday decided to file a substantive petition, challenging the Tamil Nadu government’s decision to remit the sentences of all seven. The decision, according to the sources, was taken since the court’s stay order was confined only to three convicts, who were petitioners before the apex court, and hence there was nothing to restrain the Jayalalithaa government from taking further steps regarding the other four. Solicitor General Mohan Parasran had on Thursday pleaded a Bench led by Chief Justice of India P Sathasivam to also stay the release of these four convicts but the Bench had turned down his request, necessitating the government to file a comprehensive writ petition. The petition, as per the sources, will be a writ petition, set to challenge the Tamil Nadu government’s resolution to remit the remaining jail terms of all the seven convicts and the communication sent to the Ministry of Home Affairs for consultation. The Centre is going to argue that the “appropriate government”, as stipulated under the Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC), was the central government and hence it solely had the power of remission of sentence. Moreover, the convicts were held guilty under various central laws like the Arms Act, the Explosive Substances Act, the Passport Act, etc, and hence the power of Union extended to all matters relating to conviction under these laws, as per the government. It is also going to contend that the law made it clear that prior consultation with the central government was necessary in any case which was investigated by the CBI, set up under the Delhi Special Police Establishment Act. The CBI had investigated the assassination case. It is learnt that the petition will be filed on Monday. The government on Thursday filed a review petition against the court’s decision of commuting the death sentence of Murugan, Santhan and Perarivalan. It claimed that the court order was “patently illegal” and filed without any jurisdiction. In its review petition, the Centre has said the apex court passed the order “without jurisdiction” since it had limited powers to interference with the merits of the order of the rejection of mercy plea by the President. The government contended that if the SC thought there was no proper consideration of the mercy petition, the matter had to be remitted back to the President for a reconsideration, requesting for an expeditious disposal of the petitions. It maintained that the President was not required to give any reasons for delay.
