'Unacceptable, erroneous': Congress reacts after SC frees Rajiv Gandhi's killers

New Delhi, Nov 11: Senior Congress leader Jairam Ramesh on Friday said that the Supreme Court's decision to free remaining killers of former PM Rajiv Gandhi is unacceptable & completely erroneous.

"The Supreme Court's decision to free the remaining killers of former PM Rajiv Gandhi is unacceptable and completely erroneous. The Congress Party criticises it clearly and finds it wholly untenable. It is most unfortunate that the Supreme Court has not acted in consonance with the spirit of India on this issue," Congress general secretary in-charge communications Jairam Ramesh said in a statement.

On Friday, the Supreme Court had directed the premature release of six convicts, including Nalini Sriharan and R P Ravichandran, serving life sentence in the assassination case of former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi, as reported by PTI.

A bench of Justices B R Gavai and B V Nagarathna said the judgement of the top court in the case of A G Perarivalan, one of the convicts in the case, is equally applicable in their matter.

Rajiv Gandhi was assassinated on the night of May 21, 1991 at Sriperumbudur in Tamil Nadu by a woman suicide bomber, identified as Dhanu, at a poll rally. In its May 1999 order, the top court had upheld the death sentence of four convicts Perarivalan, Murugan, Santhan and Sriharan.

However, in 2014, it commuted the death sentence of Perarivalan to life imprisonment along with those of Santhan and Murugan on grounds of delay in deciding their mercy petitions. Nalini's death sentence was commuted to life imprisonment in 2001 on the consideration that she has a daughter. The Tamil Nadu government had earlier favoured the premature release of Nalini and Ravichandran, saying its 2018 advice for remission of their life sentence is binding upon the governor.