Controversy broke out over Priyanka Gandhi’s reported meeting with Nalini Murugan, who is serving a life term for her role in the assassination of Rajiv Gandhi, at the Vellore prison with jail Superintendent denying that no such meeting took place.

The denial came by way of superintendent Rajasoundari’s written reply to city lawyer D Rajkumar’s query under the Right To Information Act (RTI), seeking details of the meeting.

“In response to your query, let me inform you that on March 14, 2008 and March 19, 2008, nobody had visited the prisoner,” the reply said in the context of whether any meeting had taken place with Nalini.

Rajasoundari’s reply was dated April 11 while Priyanka had acknowledged on April 16 that the meeting had taken place while reacting to the media reports about the March 19 meeting. Priyanka said the meeting was her way of “coming to peace with violence and loss that I have experienced”.

Duraisamy, Nalini’s advocate, told reporters on Friday that he had preferred an appeal to the State Information Commissioner, appointed under the RTI, alleging that the jail superintendent was trying to “hush up” the meeting and action should be taken against the official.

However, officials at the office of the Commissioner of RTI were tightlipped on the issue.
Duraiswamy also claimed that there was no entry of Priyanka’s visit in the jail records and alleged the jail superintendent might  have been under instructions.

Nalini was awarded the capital punishment along with her husband Murugan, a Sri Lankan tamil, and two others. Nalini’s sentence was later commuted to life imprisonment at the intervention of Congress president Sonia Gandhi who pleaded clemency for Nalini on humanitarian grounds, saying that the prisoner had delivered a girl in jail and that she needed to look after the baby.

Two days ago, Nalini filed a fresh petition in the Madras High Court seeking early release on grounds of good conduct and also for having completed nearly 17 years in jail.