Rajiv Gandhi assassination: SC expresses unhappiness over status report of MDMA

The Supreme Court Tuesday expressed its displeasure over the latest status report filed by the CBI-led Multi Disciplinary Monitoring Agency (MDMA) on its probe into unravelling a larger conspiracy behind the assassination of former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi. A bench of Justices L N Rao and Hemant Gupta, after perusing the status report, said its contents were almost similar to the report filed earlier by the agency. The top court said it wanted to know about the progress made in the ongoing investigation in the past two years.

The bench posted the matter for hearing next week. On November 5 last year, the apex court had sought within four weeks a latest status report from the MDMA on its probe into the larger conspiracy behind Rajiv Gandhi's assassination.

The MDMA, set up in 1998 on the recommendations of Justice M C Jain Commission of Inquiry which had probed the conspiracy aspect of Gandhi's assassination, is headed by a CBI official and comprises officers from IB, RAW and Revenue Intelligence and other agencies. The bench had said the latest report should also include status of Letters Rogatory (LRs) sent to Sri Lanka, Thailand and other countries in the matter.

The top court was hearing the plea of 46-year-old A G Perarivalan, who has sought suspension of his life sentence in the case till completion of the probe by MDMA into the larger conspiracy behind the assassination. Perarivalan's counsel had earlier said his role was only limited to procuring nine-volt batteries, which were allegedly used in the improvised explosive device (IED) that had killed Gandhi.

On March 14 last year, the apex court had asked the MDMA to file a status report with regard to a LR sent to Sri Lanka for examining one of the accused,` Nixon alias Suren, who is lodged in Colombo jail. The top court had dismissed a plea of Perarivalan seeking recall of the May 11, 1999 verdict upholding his conviction.

It had said the material brought on record before it does not inspire confidence to interfere with the verdict in which Perarivalan and three others were initially awarded death sentence, which was later commuted to life term. The CBI had earlier submitted that Perarivalan had even visited Jaffna in Sri Lanka in the first week of June 1990, besides attending a public meeting along with other conspirators which was addressed by former Prime Minister V P Singh on May 7, 1991 in Tamil Nadu.

Perarivalan's counsel had submitted that he was just 19-years-old when the incident took place and had no knowledge of what he was doing and for what purpose the batteries were purchased. Former prime minister 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.

Fourteen others, including Dhanu herself, were also killed. Gandhi's assassination was perhaps the first case of suicide bombing which had claimed the life of a high-profile leader. In its May 1999 order, the top court had upheld the death sentence of four convicts -- Perarivalan, Murugan, Santham and Nalini -- in the assassination case.

In April 2000, the Tamil Nadu governor had commuted the death sentence of Nalini on the basis of the state government's recommendation and an appeal by former Congress president and Rajiv Gandhi's widow Sonia Gandhi. On February 18, 2014, the top court had commuted the death sentence of Perarivalan to life imprisonment, along with that of two other prisoners - Santhan and Murugan - on grounds of a delay of 11 years in deciding their mercy pleas by the Centre.

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