SC to hear Centre's plea against release of Rajiv's assassins today
February 27, 2014  09:29
The Supreme Court will on Thursday hear the Centre's plea challenging the Tamil Nadu government's announcement to release the assassins of former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi. 

An apex court bench headed by Chief Justice P Sathasivam will hear the plea. The bench agreed to hear the plea after Additional Solicitor General Siddharth Luthra told the apex court during the previous hearing in the case that the Tamil Nadu government had no jurisdiction to release the conspirators
 
Last week, responding to a petition by the Centre, the Supreme Court stayed the release of three of seven convicts - Murugan, Santhan and Perarivalan - whose death sentence was commuted because of an exceptional delay in a decision on their mercy plea. 

The Tamil Nadu government claimed that the court had not stopped it from releasing the four other convicts, Murugan's wife Nalini Sriharan, Robert Pious, Jayakumar and Ravichandran. 

Less than 24 hours after the top court commuted the death sentence of the three convicts, Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Jayalalithaa announced that all seven convicts in the case would be freed. She also asked the Centre to give its views "within three days", after which, the TN chief minister said, she would go ahead. 
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