Nalini Sriharan was sentenced to death by the trial court in the Rajiv Gandhi assassination case on January 28, 1998. Her sentence was commuted to life term by the Tamil Nadu Governor on April 24, 2000. (File photo)
The Madras High Court will hear a parole petition filed by Nalini Sriharan today, a life convict in the Rajiv Gandhi assassination case.
Nalini's father died last month and she has sought a three-day parole from today till Thursday to participate in the 16th day ritual in the memory of her father.
"Nalini had applied to the Vellore jail authorities but so far it is pending," said Nalini's lawyer, P Pugalenthi.
Nalini had attended her father's final rites on February 24, a day after he died, after the court granted her a 12-hour parole.
Nalini is one of the four convicts who were originally given death sentence in the Rajiv Gandhi assassination case. When her baby was born in jail, Congress president Sonia Gandhi, the wife of Rajiv Gandhi, intervened and her death was commuted to life.
A few years ago, the Supreme Court commuted the death sentence to life to the other three men, including her husband Murugan, citing inordinate delay by the President's Office in disposing their mercy petitions. They have been behind bars for 24 years now.
A few days ago, Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa had written to the Centre conveying her government's decision to release all seven life convicts in the case and sought their views. A similar attempt in 2014 did not materialise as the Centre challenged it in the Supreme Court which later ruled that the state needed the concurrence of the Home Ministry to release convicts in cases tried by the Central Bureau of Investigation or CBI.