by S Venkat Narayan
NEW DELHI, February 18: India’s Supreme Court on Tuesday granted relief to Murugan, Santhan and Perarivalan—-the three convicts in the Rajiv Gandhi assassination case by commuting their death sentence into life term on the grounds of inordinate delay in disposal of their mercy petitions by the country’s President.
Murugan and Santhan are Sri Lankan Tamils, while Perarivalan is a native of Tamil Nadu.
A three-judge Bench headed by the Chief Justice P Sathasivam rejected the contention of the Central Government that the three convicts do not deserve any mercy as they never showed remorse for the killing of the former Prime Minister and that they have been enjoying their prison life.
Considering that the convicts were languishing in jail for nearly 23 years, the Bench also gave a ray of hope for their release by saying that the Tamil Nadu State government can exercise its remission powers under Section 432 and 433 following the due procedure in law.
In theory, this means the Tamil Nadu government can order the release of the three convicts in the none-too distant future by exercising its powers under Section 432 of the Criminal Procedure Code.
In May 2012, the apex court had transferred to itself the writ petitions filed by the three convicts in the Madras High Court challenging the rejection of their clemency plea by former President Pratibha Patil after 11 years. The High Court on August 30, 2011 stayed their execution.
Writing the judgment the Chief Justice Sathasivam said the principles had already been laid down by the apex court in its judgment on January 21, that inordinate and unexplained delay will be a ground for commuting death sentence into life imprisonment.
In this case the only question to be decided was whether the inordinate delay was a supervening circumstance and whether the delay was caused at the instance of the accused.
Referring to the stand of the Centre that the convicts are enjoying their prison life and they do not suffer any torture, the Bench said the accused are not under legal obligation to prove physical torture. Such an interpretation is unknown to law and it will be beyond the reach of death row convicts to prove that they suffered torture.
There is no requirement in law to prove actual harm suffered by them, the Bench said.
The Bench pointed out that the materials on record show that the convicts had sent several letters and reminders to the President which remained unheeded. This shows that they suffered unendurable torture.
The Bench said mercy petitions provide a ray of hope to condemned prisoners. Merely because no time limit was fixed for disposal of mercy petitions, the executive should not sit over these petitions but recommend the decisions to the President within a reasonable period for arriving at an early decision.
The Bench said the court did not derive any pleasure in judicial review of the decisions taken by the President. The Bench allowed the petitions and commuted the death sentence of three death row convicts into life imprisonment.
General Secretary of MDMK Vaiko, who was present in the court, said: “This is an historic judgment and will go down in golden letters in judicial history”. He appealed to the Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Jayaram Jayalalithaa to take into consideration the judgment and order the release of the three convicts exercising the State government’s powers under Section 432 Criminal Procedure Code.
Rajiv Gandhi was killed by Dhanu, an LTTE activist and woman suicide bomber, at an election rally at Sriperumbudur near Chennai in Tamil Nadu on the night of 21 May 1991. Fifteen others too died in that suicide blast.
A total of 26 men and women from India and Sri Lanka were tried for their involvement in the crime. The trial was conducted under the Terrorist and Disruptive Activities Act (TADA). The designated TADA court in Chennai gave death sentences to all the 26 accused in January 1998.
In May 1999, the Supreme Court acquitted them of the charges under the TADA, but upheld their convictions on other charges including murder, and confirmed their death sentences. In 2000, they filed a mercy petition to President. Their mercy petitions were rejected after 11 years and their hangings were stayed in September 2011.
The presiding judge in the three-judge bench of the Supreme Court that confirmed the death sentences in 1998, told journalists in February 2013 that the judgment was ‘constitutionally incorrect’. He had also said that since the convicted prisoners had already spent over two decades in custody, a decision to execute them would amount to giving ‘two punishments for the same crime,’ which would violate the Constitution of India.
Commenting on the Supreme Court’s judgment, Divya Iyer, Senior Researcher, Amnesty International India, said: “The positive rulings of commutations of January 2014 and those of today offer context and impetus for India to move towards a direction of a society that can be free of the death penalty. India must now do away with the death penalty — a cruel, inconsistent and irreversible form of punishment that has no proven deterrent effect on crime.”
D R Kaarthikeyan, the police officer who headed the investigation into the sensational case, said: “The verdict is just, fair, rational and reasonable
COURTESY:THE ISLAND