Welcoming the Supreme Court judgment freeing the six convicts in the Rajiv Gandhi assassination case, Tamil Nadu Chief Minister and DMK president M.K. Stalin said the judgement underlined the fact that Governors nominated to their posts should not sit on resolutions passed by governments elected by people.
“The judgment is a historic foreword to democratic theory,” he said in a statement.
Mr. Stalin recalled the DMK’s consistent position favouring the release of the convicts while the party was in government, as well as when it was in the Opposition. It was during the DMK government under M. Karunanidhi that the death sentence of one of the convicts, Nalini, was commuted to a life imprisonment, he pointed out.
Since then, the DMK had favoured the release of the convicts and had petitioned the President and the Prime Minister and had taken steps to stand by their human rights, he said. “The Governor was sitting on the resolution adopted by the State Cabinet. We consistently urged him for their release.”
Terming the release of A.G. Perarivalan, one of the convicts in the case earlier as the first victory, the Chief Minister said the release of the other six convicts was the second victory. “This is a victory for the strong legal battles we undertook soon after we came to power. This is a victory to all those working for human rights.”
