Has Guv sent all mercy pleas or only Arivu’s to Prez, asks HC

The Madras High Court on Wednesday directed the State government to find out whether the Governor had forwarded the cabinet resolution passed in 2018 in favour of releasing all the seven convicts in the Rajiv Gandhi’s assassination case to the President or if only the matter of AG Perarivalan was selectively referred.

The first bench, comprising Chief Justice Munishwar Nath Bhandari and Justice D Bharatha Chakravarthy passed the direction on hearing a petition filed by Nalini Sriharan, one of the seven convicts. The petitioner sought direction from the court to release her without waiting for the consent of the Governor.

On recording the submissions, Chief Justice MN Bhandari questioned Nalini’s counsel M Radhakrishnan on how could the court entertain Nalini’s plea. “When Nalini’s petitions seeking an order to the Governor to counter-sign the 2018 state cabinet resolution were dismissed by the court, how we can entertain the same prayer again,” the CJ questioned.

Advocate Radhakrishnan argued that since the Supreme Court recently granted bail to Perarivalan, the same yardstick is applicable to Nalini. However, the bench rejected that argument saying that the petitioner should approach the apex court for such an order. “The top court is the supreme judicial body and we are not. We cannot decide on this issue in our own capacity,” the judges observed. Finally, Nalini filed the present writ petition praying the court to order her release even without the consent of the Governor. When the matter came up on Wednesday, the bench sought the clarification and adjourned the matter by a week.

The previous AIADMK cabinet had in September, 2018, passed a resolution and forwarded its recommendation to the then Governor Banwarilal Purohit to order the premature release of all the seven life convicts under 161 of the Constitution. As there was nothing forthcoming from the Governor’s end, Nalini and others had filed several petitions in the High Court for a direction to the Governor to consider their plea.

But no such order was passed and all the petitions had failed.