Editorial: A well-deserved relief/release

The primary emphasis laid by the Supreme Court in its ruling on Wednesday releasing A. G. Perarivalan, on Governors being bound to comply with the State Government’s decision, should not be missed. The apex court has all but reprimanded the Tamil Nadu Governor for non-exercise of his power under Article 161 of the Indian Constitution which otherwise empowered him to grant pardon to a convict or suspend, remit or commute sentences in certain cases.

The Court’s ruling setting free Perarivalan, a convict in the Rajiv Gandhi assassination case, should hitherto leave no one in doubt about the Governor having any role other than allowing a decision by a State Government to be implemented or legislative resolution to become an Act. The court was compelled to invoke its extraordinary powers in the case which witnessed a young man passing 31 years of his prime youth in a prison cell despite having no direct role in the assassination of Rajiv Gandhi in 1990.

It is evident from the long and tedious trajectory of the case that Perarivalan had to suffer the ignominious conviction and the death sentence (which was later commuted to prison sentence till death) for an act he had no knowledge of being turned into a crime. He had merely supplied two 9 volt batteries which were used in the detonation of a suicide bomber leading to the former prime minister’s death. Apparently, the heinous nature of the final act and a VIP politician being the victim slowed the wheels of justice. Reluctance and recalcitrance in reviewing the sentence and providing relief to him became the hallmark of the process. That should not have been the case when it comes to administration of justice. Perarivalan’s innocence deserved sympathetic hearing and action to relieve him of the taint as well as the punishment. The plight of the young man can be imagined as he had to suffer the prison cell for close to 31 years, the most productive part of his life, for being part of a crime by default.

The court has been brutally frank in pointing out the lapses that characterized the entire case. It has pointed out that the Governor’s office ought not to have sent the State Cabinet’s recommendation to the President when the call of duty was to act on it himself in keeping with the powers vested in him under Article 161 of the Constitution. The court has come down heavily on the role of the Governor’s office which sat on the recommendation for over three years before referring it to the President of India. It is something to be taken seriously if the majesty of law has to be upheld. In doing this, the court also dismissed the Centre’s argument that President exclusively, and not the Governor, had the power to grant pardon in a case under section 302 (murder) of the Indian Penal Code. It will be in the fitness of things to review the sentences of the six other life convicts in the Rajiv Gandhi assassination case. It is rather regrettable that the Indian National Congress has likened the release of Perarivalan as that of an extremist or terrorist without going into the merits of the original case where Perarivalan and the six other convicts became victims due to the high profile of the victim and not due to their act of omission and commission.