The United Nations, international human rights bodies, India’s Supreme Court of India and India’s civil liberties groups have emphasized the need to release prisoners and undertrials from the jails of India in view of the threat of Covid19 spread. Yet, the states and the Union of India are ignoring humanitarian considerations, bypassing legalities, undermining the concerns and playing with the lives of the inmates. Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Stalin has written a letter to the President of India  R. N. Kovind, seeking the release of 7 Tamil prisoners in the Rajiv Gandhi case. WSN editor Jagmohan Singh writes an Open Letter to the Chief Minister saying that his intentions may be genuine but his methodology seriously questionable.

MY  DEAR MUTHUVEL KARUNANIDHI STALIN: VANAKKAM!! God has blessed you with the opportunity to serve the people of Tamil Nadu at a very crucial point in contemporary history. While we face the attack of the virtually omnipresent Coronavirus, governments have gone into a swirl with oligopolistic tendencies not only in providing relief but also in other public matters of concern. Your government has taken some steps, including full lockdown, but it still has to walk the talk.

I write this Open Letter to you to register my deep concern at the missive that you have written to the President of India -Ram Nath Kovind, requesting him to accept the then Tamil Nadu government’s recommendation of September 2018 for the remission of life sentences of seven Tamil prisoners -S. Nalini, Murugan, Santhan, A.G. Perarivalan, Jayakumar, Robert Payas and P. Ravichandran, who have completed their prison terms in the Rajiv Gandhi case.

As someone who has been closely monitoring the developments in the case, I am dismayed at the ping-pong being played with the lives of these Tamil prisoners by successive Tamil Nadu governments and the current characteristic foul play by  Governor Banwarilal Purohit of Tamil Nadu, even in the face of Supreme Court orders.  Unfortunately, you have added your bit to this ongoing obnoxious game.

You may come out as well-intentioned to the reader of your letter, but it is bound to be ill-fated as it transgresses the scope of federal governance. The Governor of a state has to act as per the recommendation of the state cabinet. The present exercise of the Governor in passing on the buck to the President of India has no parallel in the history of India’s centre-state relations. He has done so by exercising his political overreach, made possible because of the weak stand of the state government of Tamil Nadu.

Unambiguously, the Tamil Nadu state, in writing to the President of India has already conceded the powers of the state, for which you are responsible.

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If you put federalism into a quagmire, you will face the situation that the Tamil Nadu government faced when the allocation of Oxygen to be produced by reopening of the Sterilite plant, was discussed in the Supreme Court and after strenuous protests, the Tamil Nadu government had to accept the directive of the Union government that priority for Oxygen would be given to the needs of the Union government and fulfilment of the requirements of the citizens of Tamil Nadu is secondary. The role of your party -Dravida Munnetra Kazhgham, acquiescing to the proposal despite the eye-opening order of the Madras High Court, is a clear comprise of the interests of the Tamil people and the environment of the state.

All you have to do is exercise the powers of a State under Article 161 of the Constitution of India for the release of the detenues or grant them indefinite leave under Rule 40 of the Tamil Nadu Suspension of Sentence Rules, 1982. This power has already been exercised in the case of S. Nalini in the year 2000. You must have learnt as a child, ‘Where there is a will, there is a way.”

As you would certainly know more than me, your illustrious father Karunanidhi was in the initial stages of his political career, a patriarch of Tamil rights and a champion of federalism. History of those times records that he had appreciated the Anandpur Sahib Resolution of the Shiromani Akali Dal as it had reoriented and reiterated true federalism granting autonomy to the states.

It was indeed sad to note that in 2014, when the then Chief Minister J. Jayalalitha announced the release of these seven detenues, using powers under Section 435 of the Criminal Procedure Code, it was ironically your father Karunanidhi, who opposed the idea and sought the Union government’s intervention! So, in that sense, it is not surprising that you too are pursuing the same path!!

The seven Tamil prisoners -S. Nalini, Murugan, Santhan, A.G. Perarivalan, Jayakumar, Robert Payas and P. Ravichandran, who have completed their prison terms in the Rajiv Gandhi case and there is no reason whatsoever to continue to keep them in prison.

You must have learnt as a child, ‘Where there is a will, there is a way.” All your government has to do is to exercise the powers of a State under Article 161 of the Constitution of India for the release of the detenues or grant them indefinite leave under Rule 40 of the Tamil Nadu Suspension of Sentence Rules, 1982. This power under Article 161, has already been exercised in the case of S. Nalini in the year 2000.

You have stated in your letter that “The Governor has decided that the President was the competent authority to decide on the plea of remission of sentence of these seven persons and had forwarded the State government’s recommendation to the President’s office.”

This is seven years too late. First, the state of Tamil Nadu kept quiet over the petition under Article 161 of the Constitution for at least five years. Then the Union of India, in its reply to the Supreme Court of India, early this year on 4 February, has said that the Governor has sent the petition to the President, clearly trespassing the judgements in Maru Ram Vs. Union of India reported at (1981) 1 SCC 107 at para 59 and Shamsher Singh & Anr vs The State Of Punjab reported at 1974 2 SCC 831). Is this a cat and mouse game with the lives of the seven prisoners?

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In the coming week, the Supreme Court of India will take up the matter and this wavering reply of the Governor of Tamil Nadu Banwarilal Purohit will come up for examination.

I appreciate your lines of support saying, “These seven persons have already suffered untold hardship and agony in the past three decades and have paid a heavy price. There has already been an inordinate delay in the consideration of their pleas for remission. In the present circumstances of the COVID-19 pandemic, courts are also recognising the need to decongest prisons.”

Arivu Perarivalan is on medication for urinary infection and hypertension for a long time. His ailing and aged parents, with whom this writer has met on many occasions and expressed empathy with the family as I consider him to be totally innocent,  have spent their entire life hoping to see their son out of prison.  The grant of parole to him, off and on, is no solution.  Following rule of law, all these prisoners must be released without delay.

Remarkably, emphasizing that release of the seven prisoners is the need of the hour, you say, “It is also the will of the people of Tamil Nadu.” Indeed, it is.

I am particularly impressed by the fact that you have attempted to rope in other Tamil political parties into this decision by saying, “The majority of the political parties in Tamil Nadu have been requesting for the remission of the remainder of their sentence and for the immediate release of all the seven convicts as they have been incarcerated for about three decades.”

Remarkably, emphasizing that release of the seven prisoners is the need of the hour, you say, “It is also the will of the people of Tamil Nadu.”

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Anna Stalin, the will of the Tamil people must be respected and honoured by the Tamil chief minister and not a functionary who sits comfortably in the comfort of the Rashtrapati Bhawan in Delhi and who is himself at the mercy of the Union government or even the Governor, who is a political appointee, ensconced in the Raj Bhawan in Chennai. Let us see some bold Tamil action!

Fraternally yours,

Jagmohan Singh
Editor, The World Sikh News

Social and human rights activist, a strong votary of the abolition of the death penalty, Jagmohan Singh is the editor of The World Sikh News and often uses the tool of Open Letter to voice concerns on substantive issues. He maintains a live link with Tamil issues and wholeheartedly endorses the cause of Tamil nationalism and has consistently raised his voice for the release of prisoners in the Rajiv Gandhi case and justice for Eelam Tamils in Sri Lanka.