The Madras High Court on Tuesday called for the trial court judgement in former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi assassination case. It wanted to know the exact provisions of law under which one of the convicts S. Nalini had been convicted since she had now urged the court to order her release without the Governor’s nod.
Chief Justice Munishwar Nath Bhandari and Justice D. Bharatha Chakravarthy directed the High Court Registry to list Nalini’s writ petition, seeking premature release, on Thursday, if the trial court judgement could be traced by then. If it would take time to trace it, the petition would get listed in the first week of June.
The petitioner’s counsel M. Radhakrishnan argued that his client ought to have been released in September 2018 when the State Cabinet made a recommendation to the Governor to release all seven convicts involved in the assassination case. However, the Governor kept the recommendation pending for long.
It was only on January 27, 2021 that the Governor had forwarded all files related to the premature release to the President. Contending that the Governor had no authority to refer the issue to the President, the counsel said, he should have either accepted the recommendation of the Council of Ministers or returned it.
However, before deciding her plea, the judges wanted to be sure of the facts of the case and wanted to know the provisions of law under which she had been convicted. They specifically wanted to know whether she got convicted under certain provision of the Terrorist and Disruptive Activities (Prevention) Act of 1985.
