New Delhi, February 27
The Supreme Court today directed the Tamil Nadu Government not to release four LTTE terrorists serving life sentence in the 1991 Rajiv Gandhi assassination case. The convicts are Jayakumar, Robert Payas, P Ravichandran, S Nalini.

A Bench headed by Chief Justice P Sathasivam passed the order on a petition filed by the Centre challenging the state government’s move to set them free in the light of the Supreme Court’s February 18 verdict reducing the death penalty awarded to three others — Murugan (husband of Nalini), Santhan and Perarivalan — in the case. The proposed release of the three has already been stayed by the apex court.

Slating the next hearing for March 6, the apex court clarified that it would come out with guidelines for the release of life convicts, specifying the competent authority — the Centre or the respective state government — in such cases.

Meanwhile, the Centre is finalising a petition seeking a review of the January 21, 2014 verdict of the Supreme Court commuting the death sentence awarded to 15 persons, including Haryana’s Sonia Chowdhary and her husband Sanjeev Kumar for murdering eight members of her family in 2001 and four associates of slain sandalwood smuggler Veerappan.

The January 21 judgment, holding that death-row convicts are entitled to commutation on the ground of inordinate and unexplained delay in the disposal of their mercy pleas or their mental illness, has formed the basis for the reprieve given to three killers of Rajiv Gandhi. The hope of Devender Pal Singh Bhullar, sentenced to death in a 1993 bomb blast case in Delhi, and his wife of getting his penalty reduced to life term also hinges on this verdict.