Centre denies rejecting Tamil Nadu govt's proposal on freeing Rajiv Gandhi assassins

MHA officials said that no decision has been taken yet on the proposal and consultations with the Union Law Ministry are still underway.

New Delhi: The Central government on Wednesday refuted media reports that it has rejected a proposal by the Tamil Nadu government to free seven convicts in the Rajiv Gandhi assassination case.

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

The Hindu newspaper had this morning reported that the Central government has turned down the 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 the newspaper, the MHA 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.”

It is not the first time that the state government has approached the Centre seeking its views on its decision to remit the sentences of the convicts.

The Jayalalithaa government had first written to the erstwhile UPA government in February 2014.

The daily had quoted an MHA official as saying that the government rejected the proposal after taking into consideration the opinion of the Law Ministry.

In its letter to the Centre, the state government had said, “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.”