Nalini, serving life term in the Rajiv Gandhi assassination case, on Friday sought the Madras High Court’s permission to argue in person in the appeal filed by Janata Party President Subramanian Swamy against the setting up of an advisory board to consider her premature release.
Nalini’s request came in a telegram addressed to the Registrar General of the High Court.
In September 2008, a single judge hearing a petition filed by Nalini had directed the Tamil Nadu Government to form an advisory board in accordance with law to hear Nalini’s plea for early release.
The Judge’s order came on Nalini’s petition challenging the government order rejecting her plea for early release.
Mr. Swamy has challenged the single Judge’s order on the ground that constitution of the advisory board was illegal as Nalini, whose death sentence was commuted to life, was not entitled to any “further release“.
Nalini’s telegram has been referred to the Division Bench hearing Mr. Swamy’s appeal, which is expected to be taken up in the first week of February.
Tamil Nadu Government had constituted an Advisory Board recently to consider the plea of Nalini, imprisoned for the last 19 years, and two other convicts in the case.
Nalini, arrested on June 14 1991, was sentenced to death by a special court along with 25 others in January 1998. But in May 1999, the Supreme Court confirmed the death sentence of only four including Nalini.
In April 2000, the state government had commuted Nalini’s death penalty to life imprisonment after the then governor allowed her clemency petition.
