The video conference between one of the three convicts on death row for the Rajiv Gandhi assassination, A G Perarivalan, and officials of Central Information Commission (CIC), was called off following a technical snag in the Vellore Central Prison for Men here.
Sources in the prison said, the prison administration had arranged for the video conferencing between the member of CIC and Perarivalan on Monday afternoon to hear the latter’s plea. However, it was called off after the system here failed to receive visuals from Delhi.
“We were able to hear the voice of the officials in Delhi but could not receive the visuals. After waiting for some time, the video conference was cancelled,” a source in the prison said.
The CIC would announce a date in the coming week to convene the video-conference, Perarivalan’s advocate V Rajiv Rufus said.
The video conference was organised after Perarivalan had sent a telegram to the CIC seeking information under the Right To Information (RTI) Act, to know on what grounds his mercy petition had been rejected by the President, Rufus said.
Perarivalan had approached the CIC after his attempt to get the details from the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) a year ago ended in vain.
The MHA had refused to furnish the information sought by Perarivalan regarding the rejection of his mercy petition.
It may be recalled that the then President Pratibha Patel had rejected the mercy petition of Murugan, Shanthan and Perarivalan in 2011. The MHA and President’s office had communicated the rejection of the mercy petition of the trio to the prison department in August 2011.
The prison department had communicated to the trio that they would be executed on September 9, 2011. In the meantime, the trio had approached the High Court, which had passed an interim stay on their hanging.
“In 2012, the case was transferred by the Supreme Court to the special bench of the court,” Rufus added.