JOIN USThe Supreme Court on Wednesday dismissed a curative petition filed by the Union government seeking reconsideration of its verdict commuting death penalty of three convicts in the Rajiv Gandhi assassination case into life imprisonment.
A five-judge bench presided over by Chief Justice H L Dattu rejected the plea in a brief order after going through the petition in chamber.
“We have gone through the curative petitions and the relevant documents. In our opinion, no case is made out within the parameters indicated in the decision of this court in Rupa Ashok Hurra vs Ashok Hurra & Another. Hence, the curative petitions are dismissed,” the bench said.
The decision of the bench, also comprising Justices T S Thakur, A R Dave, Ranjan Gogoi and Shiva Kirti Singh, came on the curative pleas filed by the then UPA government against dismissal of the review petitions.
The review pleas, challenging the commutation of death penalty to life term of Santhan, Murugan and Perarivalan, were dismissed by the court in February last year on the ground of 11-year delay in deciding on their mercy petitions.
The three convicts are lodged in a Vellore prison. Rajiv Gandhi was assassinated on May 21, 1991 at Sriperumbudur in Tamil Nadu.
A five-judge Constitution bench is seized up with another petition of the Centre challenging the Tamil Nadu government's decision to set free seven convicts in the high profile case as the matter was investigated by the CBI and the state government had no power to grant remission. The convicts, sought to be released by the state government, are V Sriharan alias Murugan, Santhan, Robert Pious, Jaya Kumar, Nalini, Ravichandran and Arivu.