Centre denies rejecting TN's proposal to release Rajiv Gandhi killers

The central government on Wednesday denied rejecting a proposal by the Tamil Nadu government to free the convicts of Rajiv Gandhi assassination case.

According to CNN-IBN, the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) officials said that no decision has been taken yet on the proposal and consultations with the Union Law Ministry were still underway.

Earlier this morning, media reports stated that the central government has rejected Tamil Nadu government's proposal to free the seven convicts, namely V Sriharan alias Murugan, AG Perarivalan, T Suthendraraja alias Santhan, Jayakumar, Robert Payas, Ravichandran and Nalini. As per a news report, the MHA official had told the Tamil Nadu government that “since the matter is sub judice in (the) Supreme Court, it has no authority to release the prisoners.”

This is not for the first time that the Jayalalithaa government had approached the Centre seeking its views on its decision to remit the sentences of the convicts. In 2014, the state government had first written to the UPA government saying that, “the Government of Tamil Nadu has now received petitions from the convicts with requests to release them since they have spent more than 20 years in prison … the Government, after taking into consideration the petitions of the seven convicts, has decided to remit the sentences of life imprisonment as they have already served imprisonment for 24 years.”