CHENNAI: Madras High Court on Tuesday ordered notice on a petition from S Nalini, serving life imprisonment in the Rajiv Gandhi assassination case and now confined at the special prison for women in Vellore.
Justice MM Sundresh, before whom the petition came up for hearing, ordered notice to the State Home Secretary, Inspector General of Prisons and the Superintendent, Vellore special prison, returnable in the first week of January next year.
According to Nalini, imprisoned for the past 24 years, the TN government had framed a scheme of premature release for life convicts and in this connection issued a GO on November 10, 1994. As per the GO, the life convicts who had completed 20 years of actual imprisonment could be released on humanitarian grounds under Article 161 of the Constitution. Under the said scheme, some of the life convicts, who had completed 20 years of actual imprisonment, were/are being released by the government.
Though she was also eligible to be considered for premature release under the November 1994 scheme, as she had already completed more than 20 years of actual imprisonment, her case was not considered. She had sent a representation dated February 22, 2014 to the government. It was yet to be considered and hence, the present petition, she said.