Death row appeal cites Sonia letter asking for pardon for all four

PIC courtesy: http://www.nilacharal.com/enter/celeb/soniagandhi.asp
MAYURA JANWALKAR
Source:http://www.indianexpress.com/news/death-row-appeal-cites-sonia-letter-asking-for-pardon-for-all-four/840997/0

Seeking commutation of the death sentence awarded to him and two others for the assassination of former prime minister Rajiv Gandhi, V Sriharan alias Murugan has cited the letter written in 1999 by Congress president Sonia Gandhi to the then president K R Narayanan asking him to commute the capital punishment awarded to the three men and Murugan’s wife Nalini.

The letter, written in 1999 after the Supreme Court confirmed the death sentences, has been included as part of the petition filed in the Madras High Court against the decision of the president rejecting the clemency pleas. The court earlier this week stayed the execution of the three men for eight weeks following the petition.

“The letter is a part of the documents annexed to the petition (before the Madras High Court),” Murugan’s lawyer Yug Chaudhry said.

“Our family does not contemplate that the four people should be hanged for the killing of my beloved husband. Myself as well as my son, my daughter does not want these four people should be hanged (sic),” Gandhi is quoted as saying in the letter that has been translated back into English.

The letter adds that Sonia and her children were against the death penalty awarded to Nalini, who had an eight-year-old daughter at the time. “My children suffered at the death of my beloved husband Rajiv Gandhi to a great extent and therefore we do not favour that another child in the world should lose mother and father (sic),” she is quoted as saying.

This letter has also been published on the back cover of a book written by Perarivalan titled An Appeal From The Death Row. “As you are well aware, my children Rahul and Priyanka and myself (sic) are suffering untold mental agony day in and day out due to the loss of our beloved Rajiv. But neither my children nor myself would like the persons responsible for my husband’s tragic end to be hanged,” Gandhi is quoted as writing here.

The Supreme Court confirmed the death sentence handed out to Murugan, Nalini, Santhan and Arivu on May 11, 1999. The review petitions of the convicts and the government of Tamil Nadu were dismissed by the SC on October 8, 1999. The Governor of Tamil Nadu’s order of rejection of the mercy petitions of all four was communicated to Murugan in jail on October 27, 1999.

However, when the four of them moved the Madras High Court against the decision of the governor, he was directed to consider their peititions afresh as “they had not been decided on the advice of the cabinet as required in law,” Murugan’s petition states. After reconsideration, the Governor commuted the death sentence handed out to Nalini but rejected the mercy petitions of the other three as communicated to them on April 25, 2000.

While Gandhi had addressed her letter to the then President, the decision to commute Nalini’s sentence was taken by the then governor of Tamil Nadu, Justice Fathima Beevi. In the latest petition in the Madras High Court, Murugan has claimed that the leniency shown to his wife Nalini is “discriminatory.”

With the communication, if any, between the then President and governor not in the public domain, another lawyer connected to the case, K Mayilsami, has complained to the Central Information Commission about being denied information he had sought under the RTI Act.

Mayilsami had sought detailed information regarding the mercy petitions filed by the three convicts on death row, the correspondences and file notings with regard to the mercy petitions, recommendations of the Home Ministry in their mercy petitions and the correspondences between the Home Ministry, the President’s office and the government of Tamil Nadu.

He has challenged the order of the Central Public Information Officer orally refusing to divulge the information regarding the mercy petitions. Mayilsami has contended that even a day’s delay in providing the information is detrimental to the three men on death row. Citing section 7 (1) of the RTI Act, Mayilsami has contended that the information should be provided to him in 48 hours as it jeopardises the “life and liberty” of the convicts who have spent 20 years in prison.