Centre to High Court on Rajiv Gandhi killers: Life Term means entire natural Life in Jail

August 13,2017:

Convicts have filed petition in High Court for premature release.

Life sentence means the imprisonment for one’s entire term of life, Union Home Ministry clarified in its counter-affidavit filed in Madras High Court.

The Counter Affidavit further stated that,"Hence, the life term cannot be restricted to any particular period or number of the years, as held by Supreme Court.

The Counter-Affidavit has been filed in response to Habeas Corpus Writ Petitions from Robert Pyas and Jayakumar, life convicts in Former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi murder case, seeking the premature release.

Union Home Ministry further added that it has been wrongly included as a party-respondent in petition.

Originally, Robert and Jayakumar had filed petition in 2012 seeking their premature release on the account of Republic Day celebrations which fell on January 26.

When matter came up on January 23,2017 Division bench of comprising of Justice M Jeyachandran and Justice T Mathivanan (both have retired now) directed Additional Public Prosecutor to find out Whether names of the duo find a place in list of the convicts to be released prematurely on the account of Republic Day celebrations.

After six months’ delay, matter came up before Division Bench comprising Justice A Selvam and Justice P Kalaiyarasan, last week.

And after considering enormous pendency of the petitions, Judges had directed authorities concerned to file their counters at the earliest.

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