Supreme Court seeks reply on Arivu’s plea

A bench comprising Justices Ranjan Gogoi and Navin Sinha asked the government to clarify its stand within two weeks on the plea by convict A G Perarivalan (alias Arivu), whose death sentence was earlier commuted to life term by the apex court. 

In his plea, Perarivalan has told the court that he was held guilty for supplying two nine volt batteries which were allegedly used in the improvised explosive device (IED) that killed Rajiv Gandhi in 1991, but probe by CBI’s Multi Disciplinary Monitoring Agency (MDMA) relating to IED was still going on. The convict has said he has spent 26 years in jail in connection with the case while the state government has already decided to set him free by remitting the remaining portion of his sentence. 

He claimed the state government has sought concurrence of the Centre on remission of his sentence, but the Centre has not taken any decision in the matter for the past two years. 

“Even after 18 years, the CBI could not conclude its investigation with relation to the IED, its origin and make due to one reason or the other,” he said.