The three condemned prisoners, facing the gallows for their involvement in the Rajiv Gandhi assassination, on Monday approached the Madras high court to declare the execution of the death sentence on them as unconstitutional and consequently substitute the death sentence with a sentence of life
imprisonment. In their petitions filed separately, Murugan, Santhan and Perarivalan also sought to restrain the authorities from executing their death sentence, fixed on September 9.
The petitions will come up for hearing before a division bench comprising Justice C. Nagappan and Justice M. Sathianarayanan on Tuesday.
In their petitions, they submitted that they were seeking commutation of their death sentence on the grounds, inter alia, of the unconscionably long delay of more than 11 years in deciding their mercy petitions by the office of the President and the consequent mental agony and suffering undergone by them during this period when they were confined in a single cell making the sentence excessive and inhuman. Cases where the delay has been less than half of what it was in the present case have been held by the Supreme Court and this court to be unconscionable and excessive, besides in breach of Article 21 of the Constitution, warranting substitution of death sentence by a sentence of life, they added.
Meanwhile, Tamil Nadu chief minister J. Jayalalithaa on Monday asserted that she had no powers to commute the death sentences awarded to the three convicts. “Neither I nor the state government has powers to annul the death penalty of the three convicted in the case after their mercy petitions were rejected by President Pratibha Patil,” Ms Jayalalithaa said even as she appealed to political party leaders not to send signals that she had powers to alter the presidential order.