The Madras High Court on Wednesday issued notices to the central and Tamil Nadu governments on a petition from Nalini Sriharan.
CHENNAI: The Madras High Court on Wednesday issued notices to the central and Tamil Nadu governments on a petition from Nalini Sriharan, serving a life term for her role in former premier Rajiv Gandhi's assassination, seeking her release from jail.
Justice K Jyothimani said the notices would be returnable by June 10.
"Nalini has applied for release in her own right on technical grounds. She has cited that procedural rules vis-à-vis the advisory board were not followed," her lawyer S. Doraiswamy earlier said.
"On the basis of that the provisions of the Prison Act and the Tamil Nadu prison rules were violated in her case," he said.
Doraiswamy dismissed as speculation that the development was an outcome of the meeting between Nalini and Priyanka Vadra, daughter of Rajiv Gandhi, on March 19 at the Vellore Central Jail.
"We cannot react to speculative reports in the press. Nalini has spent nearly 18 years in prison. Her good conduct and the passage of four additional years beyond the life sentence limit ought to be enough grounds for her immediate release," he said.
The Supreme Court confirmed the death sentences of Nalini, Murugan alias Sriharan and Perarivalan in the assassination case on May 11, 1998.
Nalini was granted clemency following the intervention of the state and central governments in April 2000.
This was facilitated by the recommendation of Congress president Sonia Gandhi to commute her death sentence into life imprisonment on compassionate grounds. Nalini has a daughter, who is studying abroad.
Murugan, a Sri Lankan Tamil who Nalini married in prison, and Perarivalan, an Indian, are awaiting the hangman at the Vellore prison since 1998.
Government sources indicated that the requests of Nalini and the two other condemned prisoners for release and clemency respectively may have been turned down in 2007 by probation officers on grounds that the development may not be conducive to peace in Tamil Nadu.
"A condemned prisoner whose death sentence has been commuted technically has to be in prison for the rest of her life, notwithstanding her good conduct, educational qualifications acquired during incarceration or compassionate grounds", said V. Selvaraj, a senior advocate.
Nalini joined members of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) who oversaw the grotesque assassination by a woman suicide bomber of Rajiv Gandhi at an election rally near Chennai on May 21, 1991. The LTTE has denied killing Gandhi.
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
)
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
)
)
)
)
)
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}