Tamaraikani to challenge changing of Nalini’s death sentence

CHENNAI, APRIL 28: AIADMK MLA from Srivilliputhur, R Tamaraikani, on Thursday announced that he would move the Supreme Court challenging t...

CHENNAI, APRIL 28: AIADMK MLA from Srivilliputhur, R Tamaraikani, on Thursday announced that he would move the Supreme Court challenging the Tamil Nadu Governor’s order commuting the death sentence of Nalini, one of the convicts in the Rajiv Gandhi assassination case, into life sentence on the advice of the state cabinet.

Participating in the debate on the demands for grants for law and prison departments in the Assembly, he said the world would laugh at the DMK regime for supporting Raji Gandhi’s "murderers" by reducing the sentence awarded to them. The state government had no right or power to recommend commutation of the sentence when the Supreme Court, the highest court in the country, had confirmed the death sentence awarded to Nalini.

Tamaraikani also charged the DMK regime with supporting an `anti-national’ party like MDMK which backed the LTTE, killers of Rajiv Gandhi. He lambasted MDMK general secretary Vaiko for speaking in support of the LTTE at the human rights conference in Geneva and sought his disqualification from the Lok Sabha membership and a ban on the MDMK.

Chief Minister M Karunanidhi clarified that the State Cabinet had considered Nalini’s mercy petition following a direction in this regard from the Madras High Court. Law Minister Aladi Aruna said the Governor or President had every right (acting on the advice of the Cabinet) to commute the sentence given to a person and it is the prerogative of the Government on how to use the power. He pointed out that even Sonia Gandhi, Rajiv Gandhi’s widow, had requested that Nalini’s sentence be changed to that of life.