Convict in Rajiv Gandhi assassination case enrolls as lawyer with Bar Council of Tamil Nadu & Puducherry

Chennai: A G Perarivalan, one of the seven convicts in the Rajiv Gandhi assassination case released by the Supreme Court in 2022, on Monday enrolled as a lawyer with the Bar Council of Tamil Nadu and Puducherry.

Perarivalan pursued law after he was released from jail in May 2022. Fifty four-year-old Perarivalan will now wear the black gown and practice in the same courts in which he stood as an accused for 31 years.

Well-wishers and friends of Perarivalan posted a picture of him wearing the black coat.

Perarivalan was arrested in June 1991 after the assassination of Rajiv Gandhi but his mother, Arputham Ammal, believed that her son was wronged by the system and knocked at every door that was available to seek her son’s release from prison.

From M Karunanidhi to J Jayalalithaa to O Panneerselvam to Edappadi K Palaniswami to M K Stalin – Arputham Ammal met every chief minister who administered Tamil Nadu since 1991 to tell her side of the story.

She also solicited the support of former Supreme Court judges Justice V R Krishna Iyer and Justice K T Thomas, who headed the bench that convicted Perarivalan. Arputham Ammal’s argument that her son has already spent over two decades in prison and he should be released was endorsed by the two retired judges, politicians, and human rights activists.

A confession by V Thyagarajan, one of the CBI officers part of the team that probed the assassination, that he “altered” the statement of Perarivalan also helped Arputham Ammal fight the case with more vigour.

Perarivalan confessed that he bought two batteries but did not know their purpose, Thyagarajan told a English newspaper in 2013, adding that he altered the words which eventually led to his conviction.

Arputham Ammal’s legal fight intensified after the Supreme Court in 2014 commuted his sentence from death to life citing the inordinate delay in deciding his mercy petition. She moved the apex court seeking his release.