The Supreme Court on Tuesday, 23 January, ordered the Central government to take a stand on the status of seven convicts in the assassination of former Indian prime minister Rajiv Gandhi.
The top court told the Centre to clarify within three months whether it agreed with the move of the Tamil Nadu government to commute the jail sentences of seven convicts in the case.
According to The Hindu, the seven men convicted in the assassination of the former prime minister – Murugan, Perarivalan, Nalini, Santhan, Robert Payas, Jayakumar, and Ravichandran – were sentenced to death, along with 21 others, by a special court under the Terrorist and Disruptive Activities Act (TADA) in an order dated 28 January 1998.
A Supreme Court order of October 1999 confirmed the convictions of the seven, while acquitting the other 21 for the assassination of Rajiv Gandhi.
The first appeal for clemency by the seven convicts was forwarded to the President in April 2000. Eleven years later, in an order on August 2011, the President rejected the plea for clemency.
However, the Supreme Court, in an order on 18 February 2014, commuted the death sentences of the seven convicts to life imprisonment, citing the inordinate delay in the disposal of the convicts’ mercy plea as the reason.
(With inputs from The Hindu)
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