T S Sekaran/ENS
 
Chennai, May 1: Nalini Sriharan, serving a life term for her role in the assassination of former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi, on Wednesday moved the Madras High Court seeking premature release.

Justice P Jyothimani admitted Nalini’s petition and issued notice to the Home (Prison-IV) Department, the Advisory Board in Vellore Prison, Additional Director General of Prison and the Union Ministry of Home Affairs.

Nalini sought to quash the order of the Advisory Board dated December 28, 2006 and that of the Home (Prison-IV) department dated October 31, 2007, rejecting her plea for premature release. She had earlier filed a similar petition and it was pending before the HC.

Nalini contended that the Home department’s rejection of her request for release, based on the recommendation of the ADG of Prison, was arbitrary, illegal and without exercising the rules framed in Tamil Nadu Prison Rules.

Nalini said she was arrested on June 14, 1991 and had earned 2,404 days (six years and seven months) of remission during her jail term in the Central Prison for Women in Vellore. Since the maximum period of sentence was 20 years, deducting the earned remission, she was entitled to the premature release.

She said the Advisory Board, which did not recommend her release, was not constituted as per the prison rules. It had failed to take into consideration the vital points for premature release.

Nalini said of the three judges of the Supreme Court, who acquitted 19 out of the 26 accused in the case, one judge, K T Thomas, had said that she had no criminal intention to participate in the crime.