Madras HC allows convicts Nalini, husband to video call kin in Sri Lanka, UK

During the previous hearings in the case last year, the state and the Union government had taken the stance that they should not be permitted to make video calls to a foreign country.

The Madras high court on Thursday allowed a plea to permit life convicts in the Rajiv Gandhi assassination case, Nalini Sriharan and her husband Murugan, to make video calls to their relatives in Sri Lanka and the United Kingdom.

Life convicts in the Rajiv Gandhi assassination case, Nalini Sriharan and her husband Murugan, have been permitted by the Madras high court to make video calls to their relatives in Sri Lanka and the United Kingdom. (PTI PHOTO.)

A two-judge division bench of Justices N Kirubakaran and V M Velumani passed the order. The plea was filed by Sriharan’s mother, S Padma to allow the couple to make video calls to speak to their kin after Murugan lost his father in April 2020. They had sought permission to make video calls to his mother and sister in Sri Lanka and London for at least 10 minutes daily.

During the previous hearings in the case last year, the state and the Union government had taken the stance that they should not be permitted to make video calls to a foreign country. The Tamil Nadu government had opposed it submitting that it was in the domain of the ministry of external affairs and there were no provisions in the Tamil Nadu prison rules for them to take decisions involving foreign countries.

So the court had asked the external affairs ministry to respond to the issue. The then Assistant Solicitor General of India G Karthikeyan had argued that life convicts should not be permitted to make live calls to Sri Lanka as it would hamper the multi-disciplinary monitoring agency (MDMA) led investigations into the larger conspiracy of the assassination. The court had refused to accept the submission setting that they were going to make a condolence call.

Former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi was assassinated in Sriperumbudur in May 1991 and seven convicts have been serving jail terms for more than three decades. Chief minister M K Stalin has written to President Ram Nath Kovind to remit their sentence and release them, which is a call supported by all regional political parties in Tamil Nadu.