The Supreme Court of India has directed the Centre to inform it within 90 days (next three months) the status on the issue of releasing the seven main accused in the 1991 assassination of former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi at Sriperumpudur off Chennai.

Santhan, Murugan, Nalini, Perarivalan, Robert Paes, Jayakumar and Ravichandran were awarded death penalty in the case which was reduced to life sentence in 2014 by the apex Court. After this, the then Tamil Nadu Govt. headed by the late Jayalalithaa took a decision to release all the seven main accused and sought Centre’s views in this regard as Centre’s CBI had taken up the decades-long investigation in the case.

Instead of responding to Tamil Nadu, the Congress-led UPA Govt. filed a petition with the Supreme Court expressing its opposition to releasing them. In April 2014, the apex Court had asked the Centre to clarify its stance on the issue of releasing the accused. It is in this backdrop that the Supreme Court passed an order yesterday.

The order of the apex Court has directed the Centre to inform it categorically whether or not it was willing to release the seven main accused in the case, who had spent more than 25 years in prison in the case, within the next three months’ time. Observers feel that the Supreme Court’s direction has forced the Centre to take a stance and intimate the same to the apex Court.