New Delhi | President Ram Nath Kovind on Thursday rejected the Tamil Nadu government request to release the seven prisoners convicted in the assassination case of former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi.
President Kovind told the State government that the “Centre doesn’t concur with its view” to release the prisoners after the advice of the Home Ministry.
“The President has rejected the Tamil Nadu government’s plea to free the prisoners on the advice of the Home Ministry. This has been conveyed to the State. The assassins of the former Prime Minister of India cannot walk free under any circumstances,” a top official told ‘The Hindu’.
This decision has come after the state government second request to release the prisoner in the last 4years. Earlier the Home ministry on the direction of the Supreme court asked the Tamil Nadu state government to furnish details on the convicts such as the “physical and mental status,” their “economic and social background” and the previous cases registered against them.
Earlier the Centre moved to court against the State government’s proposal of February 19, 2014, to remit their sentences as they had already served more than 20 years in prison. Later a three-judge Bench of the Supreme Court gave three months to the Home Ministry to decide on Tamil Nadu’s proposal to remit the sentences of the life-term convicts.
Former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi was assassinated during a public meeting in Chennai’s Sriperumbudur on May 21, 1991.
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