The Seven Who Should Have Remained Behind Bars

Releasing those convicted of assassinating Rajiv Gandhi is not justice. And Tamil politicians are plain wrong

- GC Shekhar

Few questions on judicial decisions are of greater import than those concerning the premature release of the seven convicts in the Rajiv Gandhi assassination. After having performed a dry run through the release of AG Perarivalan in May by using its extraordinary powers under Article 142, the Supreme Court cited that as precedent to order other life convicts to be freed.

Three of the seven had earlier had their death sentence commuted to life, only because their mercy petitions before the President were cold-storaged for long. Before that, Sonia Gandhi had sought that Nalini, the lone woman among the convicts, be spared the noose since she was the mother of a girl child delivered while in prison.

Setting dangerous precedents

The DMK government, which had in 2000 recommended to the governor to commute Nalini’s death sentence, had chosen to ignore similar petitions by the other three death row convicts. That was before the DMK-Congress bonhomie of 2004 but the leeway given by Sonia’s “gesture” was sufficient to build a support system favouring the other three convicts – first for commutation and then for release.