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.
Considering the bail petition for convicts, that too the person who had committed a heinous crime having criminal conspiracy with Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), an organisation banned internationally, would be a wrong signal to the society and it would set a wrong precedent if they were considered for bail, particularly after conviction and confirmation by the apex court.
The stand of the Tamil Nadu government clearly showed that it would support the convicts and they would not make any submission on the merits of the case. "Unless and otherwise, I am impleaded in the case, no real and true facts will be placed by the State government, which is just and necessary to decide the bail petition," petitioner added. The state cabinet had in 2018 recommended to the Governor, the release of all the seven convicts in the case.
PTI
