Former prime minister Rajiv Gandhi was killed by an LTTE suicide bomber at an election meeting in Tamil Nadu’s Sriperumbudur on May 21, 1991.
In any normal country, the assassination of a former PM would be considered a crime against the nation, and the full might of the state would go into bringing those guilty to justice and send a strong message about the nation’s resolve. Death penalty, or life imprisonment without chance of parole or early release, for those found guilty would be a foregone conclusion.
But then, the current Republic of India is not a normal country. It is a unique post-colonial state where the ruling class and elites are more enmeshed in the worldview of our former colonizers, and look down upon the value systems of the masses with thinly disguised contempt and are open to sacrificing the country’s interests in pursuit of principles or ideologies that appeal to them. If you were to say that our Republic is the left-liberal laboratory of the world, you wouldn’t be too far off the mark.
Providing yet more evidence of this reality that is fast becoming apparent to the citizenry, the Supreme Court has ordered the release of all 6 remaining convicts serving life imprisonment in connection with the Rajiv Gandhi assassination case, including Nalini Sriharan, R P Ravichandran, Santhan, Murugan, Robert Payas and Jayakumar. The bench, comprising Justices BR Gavai and BV Nagarathna, passed the order while taking into consideration the case of A G Perarivalan, another convict who SC had released in May.
As per an Indian Express report,
“Nalini, who is currently out on parole, had moved the apex court seeking early release from prison after the Madras High Court turned down her plea. Her petition was filed after the Supreme Court on May 18 ordered the release of Perarivalan by exercising its ‘special powers’ under the Constitution’s Article 142. The Article enables the top court to pass orders to ensure “complete justice” in a case. Nalini cited Perarivalan’s case as she sought similar relief.
Seven convicts were sentenced to life terms in the case. In 1999, the Supreme Court sentenced four of them to death and the other three to life imprisonment. In 2000, the death sentence of Nalini was commuted to life. In 2014, the Supreme Court commuted the other three death sentences, including that of Perarivalan.“
Over 30 years after the brutal assassination of a former PM, our country has not just failed to bring his killer’s to justice, we have tied ourselves in knots and reduced ourselves to a laughing stock in front of the whole world.
You can read more details about how these 7 LTTE killers were arrested here, and how our security agencies busted the hideouts of other fanatical LTTE terrorists involved in this plot, many of whom committed suicide by consuming cyanide, here.
14 other innocents were killed besides Rajiv Gandhi, several dozens injured
Our criminal justice system has failed innocent citizens who were the victim of LTTE terror on that fateful day as well. Another report from 2018 informs us –
“A retired police officer, who survived the suicide bomb blast that killed former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi in 1991, has strongly objected to the recommendation made by Tamil Nadu government to release the seven convicts in the case.
Anasuya Earnest was a sub-inspector in 1991. She was standing a few feet from where Rajiv Gandhi was killed. Fourteen people including police personnel had lost their lives in the blast. The officer too was among the injured.
“I had lost two of my fingers. There are pellets in my body. I still live in pain while convicts enjoy in jail. Many families lost their breadwinners. Their lives are ruined. Nobody looks at our pain and suffering,” she said.
Anasuya, who retired as additional superintendent of police, says, “They are hardcore criminals. They are involved in killing our former Prime Minister. Releasing them is dangerous. They could target other leaders”.
All political parties in Tamil Nadu except the Congress and the BJP have demanded their release. Anasuya calls it vote bank politics.“
Unaccountable judiciary
Earlier this month, Law Minister Kiren Rijiju slammed the collegium system which controls judicial appointments, calling it opaque and unaccountable. This self-serving system came into existence in 1993, in a sort of judicial coup which ended the previous 43-year-old system designed by our Constitution-makers that had various checks and balances in appointments of judges and maintained the supremacy of elected representatives in the process.
In 1993, the SC took advantage of the prevailing political instability to usurp the right to appoint judges to a ‘collegium’ i.e. a closed club of the CJI and 4 senior-most SC judges, all in the name of ‘judicial independence’.
“Across the globe, judges do not appoint judges. But in India, they do so. Judges have to devote a lot of time to the entire process of recommending names. A lot of politics is involved in the process…We are a democracy, and our sovereignty lies with the people of India. People elect their representatives who run the country…..the “fittest of the persons” should be elevated as judges and not those known to the Collegium,” Rijiju said at the India Today Mumbai Conclave.
Haughtily rejecting the Law Minister’s position, CJI Chandrachud defended the collegium system and warned the executive to avoid ‘public grandstanding’ and show ‘constitutional statesmanship’. If the CJI had kept his ear to the ground and carefully heard what citizen’s are saying, and not just the liberal Lutyens’ circles in which he moves, he would have gotten clear feedback on whose ‘grandstanding and sermonizing’ the public is clearly tired of.
