By referring the issue of pardoning A.G. Perarivalan, a convict serving life imprisonment in the Rajiv Gandhi assassination case, to President Ram Nath Kovind, Tamil Nadu Governor Banwari Lal Purohit has needlessly infringed both the Constitution as well as the directions of the Supreme Court. The matter has been pending for several years and what the Governor was expected to do was to either grant pardon to the convict or reject the recommendation for his release on humanitarian grounds. Purohit has according to some legal experts, including retired apex court and High Court judges, acted in an illegal and unconstitutional manner. In an affidavit, the Centre has stated that Purohit’s reference to the President was being processed in accordance with the law. Purohit was in fact very much in his right to take an appropriate decision and should have dealt with the matter without bringing the office of the Head of State into the controversial zone. There are a large number of prisoners who are being held in prisons over a long period of time and have not been granted parole even once. Their cases need to be reviewed and taken up on merit and legality. Even in Rajiv Gandhi’s case, there were many who were held on the conspiracy charge. The former Prime Minister’s family has, for instance, expressed a desire to pardon them but the issue always tends to get a political dimension. The matter also crops up in the electoral arena whenever elections in Tamil Nadu are due, and it is not surprising that this could become a subject of the campaign when the poll process begins.
Rajiv’s assassination was both tragic as well as extremely mysterious. The Special Investigation Team that probed the killing at Sriperumbudur, on 21 May 1991, had concluded that it was the handiwork of the LTTE, the terrorist Tamil outfit operating mostly out of the Jaffna area of Sri Lanka. However, the LTTE had never ever officially claimed credit for the assassination of the former Prime Minister, thereby raising questions on who could have done it in that case. There was a theory that Sivarasan, the one-eyed Jack who allegedly planned the suicide attack with Dhanu and others, was not a member of the LTTE at the time of the incident and had apparently turned rogue and could have been helping somebody else. Although this thesis was never endorsed by the official agencies, it is not uncommon that political killings often leave more questions than providing answers.
The names of several prominent Congress politicians were also raised during the course of the investigations and till this day, no one seems to be sure as to who was responsible for including Sriperumbudur in Rajiv’s programme when it was not there to begin with. Rajiv had been cautioned about a possible attempt on his life by PLO leader Yasser Arafat, thereby suggesting that a deep-rooted international conspiracy was afoot to eliminate him. Surprisingly, some of the officials who should have acted with greater diligence to assess the threat perception, were subsequently rewarded with important postings. Like the assassinations of Abraham Lincoln, John Kennedy, Robert Kennedy, Indira Gandhi and Benazir Bhutto, Rajiv’s death shall be shrouded in mystery as well. However, that does not absolve Purohit of the responsibility of taking a call on the release of one of the convicts, an act described by a former SC judge as “dereliction of duty”.