NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court on Tuesday asked the Centre to take decision case in three month’s time on the Tamil Nadu government’s proposal in 2014 by which it had asked for remitting the sentences of seven convicts in the Rajiv Gandhi assassination.
A three-judge bench of Justices Ranjan Gogoi, A M Sapre and Navin Sinha has asked Additional Solicitor General Pinky Anand to take the decision on the state government letter
Two years ago, the State government had in a letter expressed its intent to release Perarivalan, Murugan, Santhan, Nalini, Robert Pious, Jayakumar and Ravichandran from jail, as they had all served 24 years in prison.
Following the request, the Centre had turned down their proposal, saying the matter was sub-judice.
The letter by Tamil Nadu had raised the question whether a state could unilaterally remit life sentence in a case investigated by CBI.
A constitution bench in 2015 had ruled that the law will hold that states cannot unilaterally remit the sentences of life convicts in cases investigated by a central agency under a central law.
The court had held that the Centre, in national interest, can wield its Executive power while deciding cases of remission of convicts.
The ruling had come on the Central government’s appeal challenging the state government’s move to release the convicts and prematurely by granting them remissions.
In 2014, the court had stayed the Tamil Nadu government’s move to release three convicts namely Murugan, Santhan and Arivu whose death sentences were commuted to life term.