AG Perarivalan was sentenced to death for his role in the 1991 assassination of Rajiv Gandhi. He was 19 when charged for buying the two nine-volt batteries that were used in the suicide-bombing belt
Finally, Freedom!
AG Perarivalan, one of the life convicts in the Rajiv Gandhi assassination case, will walk out of jail after the Supreme Court ordered his release on Wednesday.
The top court invoked power under Article 142 as his mercy plea kept shuttling between Governor and President.
Article 142 empowers the apex court to exercise its jurisdiction and pass a decree or order “for doing complete justice in any cause or matter pending before it.”
Last week, the Supreme Court indicated that it disagreed with the Centre’s decision to await the President’s referral, after the state Cabinet has given its recommendation, noting that “no one was above the law.”
As AG Perarivalan prepares to be a free man after being incarcerated for 31 years, we take a look back at the case and his road to freedom.
AG Perarivalan and the Rajiv Gandhi case
A G Perarivalan, alias Arivu, is the son of Tamil poet Kuyildasan.
Now 50-years-old, Perarivalan was a teenage sympathiser of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE). He was 19 when then Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi was assassinated at a rally in Sriperumbudur, Tamil Nadu, on the evening of 21 May 1991.
Investigations led to Perarivalan’s arrest on 11 June 1991 and it was charged that he was the one who had bought the two nine-volt batteries used in the bomb belt and handed them over to LTTE chief Sivarasan, the mastermind of the operation.
It was also charged that Perarivalan had taken Sivarasan to a motor shop days before the assassination and bought a motorcycle in his name, but provided a wrong address.
Perarivalan’s confession taken under the now discontinued Terrorism And Disruptive Activities (Prevention) Act (TADA) had read, “Moreover, I bought two nine volt battery cells (Golden Power) and gave them to Sivarasan. He used only these to make the bomb explode.”
However, in 2013, Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) official V Thiagarajan revealed that he had altered Perarivalan’s statement, recorded while in custody, to make it a confession statement.
The former CBI officer said that Perarivalan had not actually said the second part. In fact, Perarivalan had actually told him that he was not aware of the reason for buying the batteries, Thiagarajan told The News Minute.
“Arivu told me that he did not know why they asked him to buy that (the battery). But I did not record that in the confession statement. Then, the investigation was in progress, so that particular statement I did not record. Strictly speaking, law expects you to record a statement verbatim… we don’t do that in practice,” he said in a documentary released in 2013, reported The Hindu.
AG Perarivalan and his mother, Arputhammal, have been fighting for his freedom since 2015. Despite the many hurdles, they continued their crusade to see Arivu walk out of prison. PTI
Prison time
Of his 31 years in Vellore and Puzhal Central prisons in Tamil Nadu, Perarivalan spent 24 years of them in solitary confinement.
Initially, he was sentenced to death by a TADA court in 1998 along with 25 others for their role in the assassination.
In 2014, his sentence was commuted to life imprisonment by the Supreme Court.
The Indian Express reported that Perarivalan used his time in prison to complete undergraduate and postgraduate degrees from Indira Gandhi National Open University, as well as to procure more than eight diploma and certificate courses.
His legal battle
Perarivalan has maintained his innocence right through his incarceration and has fought many a legal case.
In 2014, after the Supreme Court had commuted his death sentence to life imprisonment, the apex court had also said that the imprisonment of the seven convicts would be subject to remission rules of Tamil Nadu, allowing for prisoners to be released after 14 years based on good conduct.
Following this, the Jayalalithaa administration had announced that her government will release all seven convicts from jail. But the Supreme Court stayed the order and asked Tamil Nadu to maintain status quo.
The next year, Perarivalan filed a mercy (remission) plea with the Tamil Nadu governor, stating that he had undergone solitary confinement in prison for over 24 years. When he received no response, his mother moved a plea on his behalf in the Supreme Court.
The Tamil Nadu government in 2016 sent a proposal to the Centre asking for remission of the life sentences for all seven convicts. However, two years in, the Centre rejected the state’s proposal, telling the Supreme Court that the remission of their sentence would set a “dangerous precedent” and have “international ramifications”.
However, the apex court rejected the Centre’s petition and said that that the governor could take a decision on the pardon plea as he “deemed fit”. The governor chose to sit on the Cabinet’s recommendation of releasing Perarivalan and the other convicts in the case.
The governor’s inaction upset the Supreme Court, who in January 2021 warned that the court may be forced to take a decision. Instead of acting on the Supreme Court’s diktat, the governor, then forwarded the mercy plea to President Ram Nath Kovind in February 2021.
As the hearing over the governor’s decision dragged on, the Supreme Court granted bail to Perarivalan on 9 March, taking into account that he had already spent more than 30 years in jail.
In April, the apex court said it was wrong for the governor of Tamil Nadu to refer the remission plea to the President despite the state Cabinet already having made a recommendation in the case.
“Why don’t you just agree to have him released? People who have served over 20 years are released… We are also offering you an escape route. Your argument that the Governor does not have the jurisdiction to take a decision on the mercy plea under Article 161 strikes a blow on the federal structure of the Constitution… Under which provision can the Governor refer the decision of the State Cabinet to the President?” Justice L Nageswara Rao was quoted as saying.
The bench, also comprising Justice BR Gavai, said that the Centre’s argument that the Governor does not have the jurisdiction to take a decision on the mercy plea under Article 161 (Governor’s power of mercy), strikes a blow on the federal structure of the country.
On 11 May, the Supreme Court concluded its hearing in the case and had announced that it would pronounce its order likely on 18 May.
The rest, as you know now, is history!
With inputs from agencies
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