Let us release convicts sans Centre’s nod, TN pleads with SC

R Sedhuraman

Legal Correspondent

New Delhi, July 27

The Tamil Nadu government on Wednesday filed a review petition in the Supreme Court for the release of seven life convicts in the Rajiv Gandhi assassination case without taking the Centre’s permission.

In the petition, the state government has primarily questioned the logic behind an apex court judgment delivered by a 5-member Constitution Bench on December 2, 2015, holding that the state governments would have to “consult” the Centre under Section 435 of CrPC for granting remissions in sentences actually meant taking the “concurrence” of the union government.

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The SC’s ruling had come on the Centre’s appeal challenging the state government’s move to release the convicts, including Murugan, Santhan and Perarivalan, prematurely by granting them remissions.

The apex court could not have widened the Centre’s power beyond the statutory provisions at the cost of the states, the Tamil Nadu government pleaded. The court had also failed to appreciate that merely because the investigation was done by the CBI did not mean that the Centre’s executive powers extended to remissions, it contended.

The Supreme Court had also clarified that life sentence meant imprisonment for the rest of life, but the government was free to release the convicts after 14 years by granting remissions even in cases where the death penalty was commuted to life.

The power to reduce the sentence would lie with the Centre in cases filed under central laws or by central agencies. However, both the Centre and the state governments should grant remissions only at the request of the convicts, not suo motu.

Headed by the then Chief Justice HL Dattu, the other members of the bench were justices FMI Kalifulla (now retired) PC Ghose, AM Sapre and UU Lalit.