.New Delhi: At Vellore Central Jail, three men await their death. All three charged in the Rajiv Gandhi assassination case. The question of whether they should live or die has never had any answers but now the debate has been further complicated by a number of debates that have exploded around them. From the debate over the death penalty, to questions being raised on the veracity of evidence in the case, to a re-awakening of a radical strain in Tamil Nadu politics and to the emotional charge of families who are still hoping for reprieve.
Vellore: Outside Vellore Jail, two hours west of Chennai, the mother of Perarivalan or Arivu, completes the rituals to meet her son - a ritual of the past 20 years.
Except now she is no longer alone. The jail has become a pilgrimage of sorts, the Vellore 3 have gone from convicts in an assassination case to popular heroes.
That popular sentiment many say drove the Tamil Nadu assembly's unprecedented resolution passed on August 30, 2011 asking for the death penalty of all 3 men to be commuted to life.
The same sentiment was on view when on the very day a battery of top lawyers mobilized by MDMK leader Vaiko, managed to get a stay on the death penalty of all 3 men for 8 weeks.
The High Court stay was not based on evidence but simply on the questions of delay. These men have spent the past 20 years, of which the last 10 was waiting for news of their clemency petition. But now the momentum generated by the stay has raised questions of innocence or guilt which has always haunted case. Questions which at a larger level have centered around that these were mere foot soldiers in the wider assassination conspiracy.
For Arputham Ammal the distinctions are academic. She says the result is proof that her son is innocent.
Breaking down she says, "My son lost 20 years of his life. He has done no wrong. But despite that he has maintained his dignity."
But those gathered outside the jail, and elsewhere - a motley group of activists, and political splinter groups, about whom more later are hoping to raise wider questions.
One of the activists at the forefront of this agitation, Selvaraj says, "Perarivalan stated that he bought a bike, he bought a battery. These were prior to 7th May so he was not connected to the conspiracy."
20 years after the assassination- can the evidence be re-opened?
Rajiv Gandhi was killed by the LTTE, according to the CBI, because he ordered IPKF troops into Sri Lanka after the Indo-Sri Lanka Accord signed on July 29, 1987.
Within a year the CBI's Special Investigation Team filed a chargesheet where at the top of the pyramid of guilty were LTTE leader Prabhakaran and his deputy Pottu Amman who gave the orders.
The plot was executed by a team sent to India, Sivarasan, from the LTTE's intelligence wing, Dhanu the human bomb and Subha, a back up suicide bomber.
Prabhakaran, Pottu Amman, Dhanu, Subha and Sivarasan are all dead.
The men who today face death penalty are Murugan and Santhan - part of the LTTE team sent from Lanka, and Arivu who though features way below, as accused number-18 in a list of 26, is part of a group of Indian LTTE sympathizers. According to the CBI he was deep in the conspiracy as well.
These are conclusions backed by 2 Supreme Court orders.
Former Chief of SIT, DR Kaarthikeyan, in the Rajiv Gandhi assassination case rubbishes all questions, "You are going to sit in judgment of the three judge bench of the Supreme Court now? Analyzing who played what role? It would be ridiculous."
But those chapters are now being reopened. In a book written in prison ostensibly by Arivu though clearly the work of many hands - part personal journey of a 19 year old who spent the better part of his adult life in prison while partly worded like a legal document that questions the charges against him.
For instance, the most serious charge is that he bought a 9 volts Golden Power battery that was used to trigger the bomb.
He says he never denied buying the battery but asks if there is proof it was used in the suicide vest?
Former DIG, SIT probing the assassination, Radhavinod Raju says, "I don't think Arivu has signed on the battery to say that it was his. This is circumstantial evidence. There is evidence that he has purchased the battery. There is evidence that this Golden Power battery was found in the improvised explosive device. Arivu was close to Sivarasan. Not only Arivu, Bhagyanathan, Haribabu, they were working for Sivarasan."
Arivu describes in detail how he was tortured, a charge the SIT has always denied.
The Chief Investigating Officer in the case, Mr K. Raghothaman, says "No. Absolutely not. In the beginning, when everybody was brought, that time nobody knew whether he is going to tell the truth or not. There would have been some mishandling. It was not like putting beating and all these things."
Arivu's mother however says, "I asked the Police, will you beat my son? They said, no we will not beat him, we're officers. It's only after he wrote his book that I realized how much they had tortured him."
And in the end, the book raises a central question - did Arivu and the others know about the conspiracy at all or were they only doing the bidding of others without any knowledge?
It refers to the one aspect of the Supreme Court judgment where the court differed with the CBI.
The verdict refers to a wireless exchange between Sivarasan and Pottu Amman on 7th May 1991, three weeks before the blast. In that Sivarasan says only 3 people knew about the plot - himself, Dhanu and Subha.
Wireless message: "Our intention is not known to anyone except we three" (Subha, Dhanu and himself)
CBI investigators say it's impossible that the rest didn't know - even a foot solider like Arivu.
Raghothaman says, "100%. One more thing. When we all caught hold of them, as usual the local police that was on deputation tried to beat, and immediately they told that we are not criminals. We have not conducted any theft, robbery, or a riot. We have done for our cause and we are proud that we have done it successfully."
Arputham Ammal says, "He has nothing to do with the LTTE. Even today they write LTTE on the prison slip. I don't know why. Despite shouting from the rooftops that we don't know anything about LTTE, they refuse to believe us."
When we ask Arivu's mother she says as only mothers can - forget the legalities, you met my son. What did you think?
The fact is - we did meet Arivu, Murugan and Santhan. The normally strict rules about journalists meeting convicts on death row have been relaxed for these men.
And so we entered Vellore Jail, without cameras of course, but even so a highly unusual visit.
First on Arivu - we can hardly base questions of guilt or innocence on first impressions but on first impression he is not at all the image of a convict on death row, someone who has spent most of his adult life in jail.
We also saw photos of him in 1991 when he got arrested and compared to what he looks now though it doesn't do justice to him. Imagine a young man looking fresh and relaxed, dressed in a white tracksuit.
He told us that (Inside Vellore Jail)
That he still has the noose around his neck -
"We still have noose around our neck"
And that his mother is his energy -
'My mother is my energy'
or as he put it- his 9 volt battery !
"She is my 9V battery!"
He was bit hesitant about admitting his support of the LTTE, but says so was everyone else
"I was with LTTE, but so was everyone else'
It was, he says, that time
"It was that time when even the government was supporting them"
Meeting the three in jail, with the crowds outside, is like a flashback to that time - the late 80s when Tamil Nadu's young were enamored by the romance of the LTTE.
Selvaraj says, "See somebody came to my class, he was studying from SL so he was studying in my place. We went and searched for a room for him, we collected money for him so he did his diploma here. So we offered all the help but he is not the assassin of Rajiv Gandhi. But it happened to be Sivarasan who is a friend of Perarivalan so it could be me, it could be xyz. So we all supported the cause. Perarivalan was not in the conspiracy."
The return of that sentiment with this case has enabled what to the CBI is unthinkable - a valorisation of even someone like Murugan, the other accused.
Someone , who in sharp contrast to Arivu is described by the court as a 'Sri Lankan national and hardcore LTTE activist' who befriended an Indian woman- Nalini, the sister of a LTTE sympathizer to provide cover to the human bombers Dhanu and Subha. It goes on to say 'Sivarasan and Murugan decided to make use of Nalini'.
When we met Murugan in prison he seemed as relaxed as Arivu - but far less hesitant about his LTTE connection.
He told us that (Inside Vellore Jail)
He was part of the LTTE, but again -
"I was in LTTE, but not hardcore"
He had no knowledge of the plot -
"Didn't know about plot"
His romance with Nalini was genuine, not a decoy. He says he is not worried about himself as much as about Nalini and his daughter, who was born in prison.
"I am worried about Nalini , and my daughter"
His daughter, Harithra, today is a student in London. Murugan says he last saw her when she was 3.
"I last saw her when she was 3"
Today right at the entrance of the Vellore prison, we find Murugan's story is being told and read.
The popular Tamil weekly Junior Vikatan has serialized his account of events, in which he comes across as a dashing LTTE spy from Lanka, who romanced an Indian beauty.
This kind of popular sentiment is making it hard to get answers to questions, even genuine questions of law and justice in this case, even more so with mainstream political parties playing to the mood on the streets.
The campaign to save the Vellore 3 has brought together those who have been genuinely fighting against the death penalty and those who've discovered it as a recent phenomenon. This in itself is not unusual. Any public cause creates strange bedfellows but what is worrying is that in the process it might have reopened a chapter in Tamil Nadu politics that is perhaps best left closed.
In a Chennai suburb is a protest venue for the Vellore 3. We are shown a list of organizations that are on a relay hunger strike. They are described as apolitical - united only in their opposition to the death penalty but include known LTTE cheerleaders who occupy Tamil Nadu's political fringe.
It is hard to imagine what genuine voices of the anti death penalty movement like Justice V. Krishna Iyer would make of the overtones of this gathering.
At the entrance is a remembrance poster of Prabhakaran. On sale, along with Arivu memorabilia are CDs of LTTE songs.
There are posters everywhere of Sengodi, the young woman from Kanchipuram who immolated herself demanding that the three men be set free.
Another girl, only 11 years old, is made to describe her visit to Vellore prison. Pughazselvi speaking on the mike says, "I went to Vellore jail and met all three of them. I had a long conversation with Perarivalan. He told me that he never bought any battery. I don't think any shop would issue a bill for a battery, that too 21 years ago."
At any other time, this would be a fringe gathering but this is a Tamil Nadu, still angry at alleged war crimes by the Sri Lankan army against Tamil civilians in the last days of the war against the LTTE.
And there is political currency to be had by raising the cause of Sri Lankan Tamils. Every other day, the DMK chief restates his demand for clemency for the Vellore 3. Coming from him, is still not surprising - he had told us in 2009 what he felt about Prabhakaran.
In an earlier interview to NDTV, Karunanidhi had said, "Prabhakaran is my good friend."
Infact there has always been a question mark over Mr Karunanidhi's role in the Rajiv Gandhi assassination conspiracy and as a sign of the times, SIT members openly allege that they were blocked from investigating Mr Karunanidhi's role in the wider conspiracy.
Raghothaman says, "In my view I wanted to examine him during the course of the investigation itself. That I have gone on record in my book. There was a break on that. On Mr Karunanidhi."
Kaarthikeyan however disagrees, "You can't on a wild goose chase by simply making a charge against somebody. We had to go from the crime to the criminal. Otherwise, we would have carried on for another 10-20 years time as it happened in some cases. As far as I am concerned, my conscience is clear. We have followed the law and ethics strictly. We have never yielded to any type of influence either from the media or through the politicians, or even through by judicial commission."
But it is the U turn by the staunchly anti LTTE Jayalalithaa which is most dramatic as she attempts to position herself as the real leader of the Tamils.
Dr Maitreyan, MP, AIADMK says, "The popular sentiment of the people of Tamil Nadu has been that the LTTE death sentence should be commuted to life sentence."
On being asked if they are just pandering to people's emotions he says, "AIADMK Government is a pro-people's government. Anything that is not in the interest of the people of the State, this government will not do."
As we get ready to leave her, Arivu's mother shows us a charity set up in her son's name - a moment untainted by political venality. But what of the sentiment of another family - the Gandhi family, and of the many families who lost their own on that night in May in 1991.
Radhavinod Raju says, "One thing that really makes me sad is that everyone has forgotten the death of poor Mr Rajiv Gandhi and so many others. Nine police officers led by the District Superintendent of Police, Mr Mohammad Iqbal got killed in that bomb blast. It was Mr Mohammad Iqbal's birthday that day. Nine of them were killed in this bomb blast. Including the bomber Dhanu, 18 of them died, 16 of them innocent people."
Except now - 20 years have passed, and even those who prosecuted them, and convicted them, believe that just for that reason alone, justice has been done.
Kaarthikeyan says, "They have got a case to go to the court or the Government, the executive authority, whoever is competent, to argue. First, telling that of the four sentenced to death, the death sentence of one has been commuted to life. Why don't you treat us fairly? Secondly, we have been going through the agony of death at every moment, every day for the last 11 years. We have suffered enough. So show us mercy and commute our death."
Justice KT Thomas, former Supreme Court judge who was part of the bench which pronounced judgment in the Rajiv Gandhi assassination case says, "Since I was part of the judgment by which these 3 persons were sentenced to capital punishment, I have now a different approach, because for murder there is only one punishment, either capital punishment or life imprisonment.
But if they are liable to be considered for that then imposing a death penalty now will amount to two punishments imposed on each of them. That according to me is contrary to Article 21 of the Constitution."
The final decision is in the Centre's hand - they have to reply to the high court within 8 weeks, 4 weeks of which have passed without a response, not surprising given that the government is not just going to weigh matters of jurisprudence but also whether they will allow public sentiment of a state to determine their decision. A decision which could then have repercussions on other cases, like that of Afzal Guru.
The Vellore 3 have waited for 20 years for an answer, clearly it will take some more time. In matters of life and death, there are no easy answers.
Vellore: Outside Vellore Jail, two hours west of Chennai, the mother of Perarivalan or Arivu, completes the rituals to meet her son - a ritual of the past 20 years.
Except now she is no longer alone. The jail has become a pilgrimage of sorts, the Vellore 3 have gone from convicts in an assassination case to popular heroes.
That popular sentiment many say drove the Tamil Nadu assembly's unprecedented resolution passed on August 30, 2011 asking for the death penalty of all 3 men to be commuted to life.
The same sentiment was on view when on the very day a battery of top lawyers mobilized by MDMK leader Vaiko, managed to get a stay on the death penalty of all 3 men for 8 weeks.
The High Court stay was not based on evidence but simply on the questions of delay. These men have spent the past 20 years, of which the last 10 was waiting for news of their clemency petition. But now the momentum generated by the stay has raised questions of innocence or guilt which has always haunted case. Questions which at a larger level have centered around that these were mere foot soldiers in the wider assassination conspiracy.
For Arputham Ammal the distinctions are academic. She says the result is proof that her son is innocent.
Breaking down she says, "My son lost 20 years of his life. He has done no wrong. But despite that he has maintained his dignity."
But those gathered outside the jail, and elsewhere - a motley group of activists, and political splinter groups, about whom more later are hoping to raise wider questions.
One of the activists at the forefront of this agitation, Selvaraj says, "Perarivalan stated that he bought a bike, he bought a battery. These were prior to 7th May so he was not connected to the conspiracy."
20 years after the assassination- can the evidence be re-opened?
Rajiv Gandhi was killed by the LTTE, according to the CBI, because he ordered IPKF troops into Sri Lanka after the Indo-Sri Lanka Accord signed on July 29, 1987.
Within a year the CBI's Special Investigation Team filed a chargesheet where at the top of the pyramid of guilty were LTTE leader Prabhakaran and his deputy Pottu Amman who gave the orders.
The plot was executed by a team sent to India, Sivarasan, from the LTTE's intelligence wing, Dhanu the human bomb and Subha, a back up suicide bomber.
Prabhakaran, Pottu Amman, Dhanu, Subha and Sivarasan are all dead.
The men who today face death penalty are Murugan and Santhan - part of the LTTE team sent from Lanka, and Arivu who though features way below, as accused number-18 in a list of 26, is part of a group of Indian LTTE sympathizers. According to the CBI he was deep in the conspiracy as well.
These are conclusions backed by 2 Supreme Court orders.
Former Chief of SIT, DR Kaarthikeyan, in the Rajiv Gandhi assassination case rubbishes all questions, "You are going to sit in judgment of the three judge bench of the Supreme Court now? Analyzing who played what role? It would be ridiculous."
But those chapters are now being reopened. In a book written in prison ostensibly by Arivu though clearly the work of many hands - part personal journey of a 19 year old who spent the better part of his adult life in prison while partly worded like a legal document that questions the charges against him.
For instance, the most serious charge is that he bought a 9 volts Golden Power battery that was used to trigger the bomb.
He says he never denied buying the battery but asks if there is proof it was used in the suicide vest?
Former DIG, SIT probing the assassination, Radhavinod Raju says, "I don't think Arivu has signed on the battery to say that it was his. This is circumstantial evidence. There is evidence that he has purchased the battery. There is evidence that this Golden Power battery was found in the improvised explosive device. Arivu was close to Sivarasan. Not only Arivu, Bhagyanathan, Haribabu, they were working for Sivarasan."
Arivu describes in detail how he was tortured, a charge the SIT has always denied.
The Chief Investigating Officer in the case, Mr K. Raghothaman, says "No. Absolutely not. In the beginning, when everybody was brought, that time nobody knew whether he is going to tell the truth or not. There would have been some mishandling. It was not like putting beating and all these things."
Arivu's mother however says, "I asked the Police, will you beat my son? They said, no we will not beat him, we're officers. It's only after he wrote his book that I realized how much they had tortured him."
And in the end, the book raises a central question - did Arivu and the others know about the conspiracy at all or were they only doing the bidding of others without any knowledge?
It refers to the one aspect of the Supreme Court judgment where the court differed with the CBI.
The verdict refers to a wireless exchange between Sivarasan and Pottu Amman on 7th May 1991, three weeks before the blast. In that Sivarasan says only 3 people knew about the plot - himself, Dhanu and Subha.
Wireless message: "Our intention is not known to anyone except we three" (Subha, Dhanu and himself)
CBI investigators say it's impossible that the rest didn't know - even a foot solider like Arivu.
Raghothaman says, "100%. One more thing. When we all caught hold of them, as usual the local police that was on deputation tried to beat, and immediately they told that we are not criminals. We have not conducted any theft, robbery, or a riot. We have done for our cause and we are proud that we have done it successfully."
Arputham Ammal says, "He has nothing to do with the LTTE. Even today they write LTTE on the prison slip. I don't know why. Despite shouting from the rooftops that we don't know anything about LTTE, they refuse to believe us."
When we ask Arivu's mother she says as only mothers can - forget the legalities, you met my son. What did you think?
The fact is - we did meet Arivu, Murugan and Santhan. The normally strict rules about journalists meeting convicts on death row have been relaxed for these men.
And so we entered Vellore Jail, without cameras of course, but even so a highly unusual visit.
First on Arivu - we can hardly base questions of guilt or innocence on first impressions but on first impression he is not at all the image of a convict on death row, someone who has spent most of his adult life in jail.
We also saw photos of him in 1991 when he got arrested and compared to what he looks now though it doesn't do justice to him. Imagine a young man looking fresh and relaxed, dressed in a white tracksuit.
He told us that (Inside Vellore Jail)
That he still has the noose around his neck -
"We still have noose around our neck"
And that his mother is his energy -
'My mother is my energy'
or as he put it- his 9 volt battery !
"She is my 9V battery!"
He was bit hesitant about admitting his support of the LTTE, but says so was everyone else
"I was with LTTE, but so was everyone else'
It was, he says, that time
"It was that time when even the government was supporting them"
Meeting the three in jail, with the crowds outside, is like a flashback to that time - the late 80s when Tamil Nadu's young were enamored by the romance of the LTTE.
Selvaraj says, "See somebody came to my class, he was studying from SL so he was studying in my place. We went and searched for a room for him, we collected money for him so he did his diploma here. So we offered all the help but he is not the assassin of Rajiv Gandhi. But it happened to be Sivarasan who is a friend of Perarivalan so it could be me, it could be xyz. So we all supported the cause. Perarivalan was not in the conspiracy."
The return of that sentiment with this case has enabled what to the CBI is unthinkable - a valorisation of even someone like Murugan, the other accused.
Someone , who in sharp contrast to Arivu is described by the court as a 'Sri Lankan national and hardcore LTTE activist' who befriended an Indian woman- Nalini, the sister of a LTTE sympathizer to provide cover to the human bombers Dhanu and Subha. It goes on to say 'Sivarasan and Murugan decided to make use of Nalini'.
When we met Murugan in prison he seemed as relaxed as Arivu - but far less hesitant about his LTTE connection.
He told us that (Inside Vellore Jail)
He was part of the LTTE, but again -
"I was in LTTE, but not hardcore"
He had no knowledge of the plot -
"Didn't know about plot"
His romance with Nalini was genuine, not a decoy. He says he is not worried about himself as much as about Nalini and his daughter, who was born in prison.
"I am worried about Nalini , and my daughter"
His daughter, Harithra, today is a student in London. Murugan says he last saw her when she was 3.
"I last saw her when she was 3"
Today right at the entrance of the Vellore prison, we find Murugan's story is being told and read.
The popular Tamil weekly Junior Vikatan has serialized his account of events, in which he comes across as a dashing LTTE spy from Lanka, who romanced an Indian beauty.
This kind of popular sentiment is making it hard to get answers to questions, even genuine questions of law and justice in this case, even more so with mainstream political parties playing to the mood on the streets.
The campaign to save the Vellore 3 has brought together those who have been genuinely fighting against the death penalty and those who've discovered it as a recent phenomenon. This in itself is not unusual. Any public cause creates strange bedfellows but what is worrying is that in the process it might have reopened a chapter in Tamil Nadu politics that is perhaps best left closed.
In a Chennai suburb is a protest venue for the Vellore 3. We are shown a list of organizations that are on a relay hunger strike. They are described as apolitical - united only in their opposition to the death penalty but include known LTTE cheerleaders who occupy Tamil Nadu's political fringe.
It is hard to imagine what genuine voices of the anti death penalty movement like Justice V. Krishna Iyer would make of the overtones of this gathering.
At the entrance is a remembrance poster of Prabhakaran. On sale, along with Arivu memorabilia are CDs of LTTE songs.
There are posters everywhere of Sengodi, the young woman from Kanchipuram who immolated herself demanding that the three men be set free.
Another girl, only 11 years old, is made to describe her visit to Vellore prison. Pughazselvi speaking on the mike says, "I went to Vellore jail and met all three of them. I had a long conversation with Perarivalan. He told me that he never bought any battery. I don't think any shop would issue a bill for a battery, that too 21 years ago."
At any other time, this would be a fringe gathering but this is a Tamil Nadu, still angry at alleged war crimes by the Sri Lankan army against Tamil civilians in the last days of the war against the LTTE.
And there is political currency to be had by raising the cause of Sri Lankan Tamils. Every other day, the DMK chief restates his demand for clemency for the Vellore 3. Coming from him, is still not surprising - he had told us in 2009 what he felt about Prabhakaran.
In an earlier interview to NDTV, Karunanidhi had said, "Prabhakaran is my good friend."
Infact there has always been a question mark over Mr Karunanidhi's role in the Rajiv Gandhi assassination conspiracy and as a sign of the times, SIT members openly allege that they were blocked from investigating Mr Karunanidhi's role in the wider conspiracy.
Raghothaman says, "In my view I wanted to examine him during the course of the investigation itself. That I have gone on record in my book. There was a break on that. On Mr Karunanidhi."
Kaarthikeyan however disagrees, "You can't on a wild goose chase by simply making a charge against somebody. We had to go from the crime to the criminal. Otherwise, we would have carried on for another 10-20 years time as it happened in some cases. As far as I am concerned, my conscience is clear. We have followed the law and ethics strictly. We have never yielded to any type of influence either from the media or through the politicians, or even through by judicial commission."
But it is the U turn by the staunchly anti LTTE Jayalalithaa which is most dramatic as she attempts to position herself as the real leader of the Tamils.
Dr Maitreyan, MP, AIADMK says, "The popular sentiment of the people of Tamil Nadu has been that the LTTE death sentence should be commuted to life sentence."
On being asked if they are just pandering to people's emotions he says, "AIADMK Government is a pro-people's government. Anything that is not in the interest of the people of the State, this government will not do."
As we get ready to leave her, Arivu's mother shows us a charity set up in her son's name - a moment untainted by political venality. But what of the sentiment of another family - the Gandhi family, and of the many families who lost their own on that night in May in 1991.
Radhavinod Raju says, "One thing that really makes me sad is that everyone has forgotten the death of poor Mr Rajiv Gandhi and so many others. Nine police officers led by the District Superintendent of Police, Mr Mohammad Iqbal got killed in that bomb blast. It was Mr Mohammad Iqbal's birthday that day. Nine of them were killed in this bomb blast. Including the bomber Dhanu, 18 of them died, 16 of them innocent people."
Except now - 20 years have passed, and even those who prosecuted them, and convicted them, believe that just for that reason alone, justice has been done.
Kaarthikeyan says, "They have got a case to go to the court or the Government, the executive authority, whoever is competent, to argue. First, telling that of the four sentenced to death, the death sentence of one has been commuted to life. Why don't you treat us fairly? Secondly, we have been going through the agony of death at every moment, every day for the last 11 years. We have suffered enough. So show us mercy and commute our death."
Justice KT Thomas, former Supreme Court judge who was part of the bench which pronounced judgment in the Rajiv Gandhi assassination case says, "Since I was part of the judgment by which these 3 persons were sentenced to capital punishment, I have now a different approach, because for murder there is only one punishment, either capital punishment or life imprisonment.
But if they are liable to be considered for that then imposing a death penalty now will amount to two punishments imposed on each of them. That according to me is contrary to Article 21 of the Constitution."
The final decision is in the Centre's hand - they have to reply to the high court within 8 weeks, 4 weeks of which have passed without a response, not surprising given that the government is not just going to weigh matters of jurisprudence but also whether they will allow public sentiment of a state to determine their decision. A decision which could then have repercussions on other cases, like that of Afzal Guru.
The Vellore 3 have waited for 20 years for an answer, clearly it will take some more time. In matters of life and death, there are no easy answers.
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