Chennai: A functionary of the Congress' Tamil Nadu unit has moved the Madras High Court with a plea to be included as a party -respondent in the petition filed by Nalini Sriharan, one of the convicts in the Rajiv Gandhi assassination case and serving life imprisonment, to grant premature release even without the consent of the State Governor. In his petition, M A Muthalakan (60), district president of South Chennai Central Congress Committee, strongly opposed grant of any relief to Nalini. Nalini is on parole now.
According to Muthalakan, after the country's independence, in no case have the convicts approached the court of law many times and consumed its time, as done by the convicts in the Rajiv Gandhi assassination case. In repeated intervals, they had filed petitions one after another and had obtained orders such as parole and commutation of the sentence. Once the person is convicted and the same is confirmed by the courts, upto the Supreme Court, the remedy lies only before the appropriate government, particularly in a case of this nature, before the Union government. However, the petitioner and others were considered for parole on different occasions with different reasons. They prayed for bail, which is alien to the Criminal Procedure Code (CrPC).
One important fact to be borne in mind is that, though the assassination of Rajiv Gandhi was conspired post his Prime Ministership, it was primarily instigated and conspired as a consequence for the acts/decisions taken by his government, while he served as the Prime Minister of India, thereby, making the convicts not just offenders of any other murder case but to be construed as convicts of a murder conspiracy that had direct bearing on the sovereignty, security and political independence of India.