The Supreme Court on Wednesday granted bail to A.G. Perarivalan, one of the convicts in the Rajiv Gandhi assassination case.
Perarivalan had been arrested in the case in 1991 at the age of 19. He was accused of purchasing the battery that was used to trigger the belt bomb used to kill Rajiv and 43 others.
In 1999, he was sentenced to death for his role in the case. In 2014, his death sentence was commuted to life imprisonment. In 2018, the previous AIADMK government in Tamil Nadu had recommended premature release for Perarivalan and six others in the Rajiv Gandhi case.
On Wednesday, the bench of justices L. Nageswara Rao and B.R. Gavai granted bail to him. The bench had noted the case concerned the power of the Tamil Nadu governor to sit on the fence over the release of a convict, whose release had been recommended by the state governor.
The bench noted Perarivalan had “spent over 30 years in prison” and said he was “entitled” to be released on bail, in spite of the vehement opposition by the Centre, Live Law reported.
Perarivalan had approached the Supreme Court in 2016 after the Madras High Court refused to hear his plea for commutation of sentence. Perarivalan is currently on parole; he had been granted parole thrice before.
As condition of bail, the Supreme Court ordered Perarivalan to report to the local police at Jolarpettai (his native place) during the first week of every month.
