The woman who has spent 19 years in prison for assassinating former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi has been told she is not eligible for general amnesty.

The Madras High Court said, on Tuesday, "She had committed a crime which was cunning in conception, meticulous in plans and reckless in execution, taking away the life of the former prime minister."

Nalini Sriharan has been campaigning to be released from the Vellore prison where she is serving a life sentence. Last week, the Tamil Nadu government told the court that it had decided she should not be freed. The government said a prison advisory board had given eight reasons for keeping Nalini in jail. Among them: that releasing her could lead to a law and order problem, and that her crime is "heinous"  and she participated in Gandhi's killing "fully aware of what she is doing."

Nalini' s lawyer argued that over the last few years, a thousand convicts serving life sentences have been freed. However, Nalini's case was handled by the CBI, which means that the state government cannot make any decisions on her without consulting the Centre.

Nalini had asked to be set free on the grounds that she is not keeping well and wants to spend some time with her daughter before she dies.

Nalini was arrested in 1991 and sentenced to death by the Supreme Court in 1999. After she had a baby girl in prison, Rajiv's wife, Sonia, intervened, and Nalini's sentence was changed to life imprisonment.

In September last year, Nalini went on a hunger strike to demand that she be set free. In her appeal to the Madras High Court, she said, "I would like to settle down peacefully... I am already 43. Due to my health condition after 18 years in jail, I cannot expect to live long."