Rajiv Gandhi assassination case: SC notice to Centre on plea for probe

New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Wednesday sought the response of the Centre and CBI on a plea seeking probe into the alleged "larger conspiracy" behind assassination of former prime minister Rajiv Gandhi.

A bench of Justices Ranjan Gogoi and L Nageshwara Rao issued notice to the premier investigating agency seeking reply on the plea which alleged that CBI did not probe the conspiracy behind the killing of Rajiv Gandhi in 1991 despite an order from a TADA court in Chennai.

The order came on a plea filed by AG Perarivalan, one of the convicts in the assassination case, who contended that that neither the CBI (Special Investigation Team) nor its Multi Disciplinary Monitoring Agency (MDMA), had proceeded with the probe in a proper perspective to bring the accused to book as several top people were involved in the case.

The apex court had on Febraury 18, 2014 commuted the death sentence of Perarivalan to life imprisonment along with two other condemned prisoners Santhan and Murugan on the ground of 11 years delay in deciding their mercy plea by the Centre.

Perarivalan had earlier sought the case dairies pertaining to CBI and MDMA, which probed the matter.

When the matter came up for hearing, the bench wanted to know as to "what for the further investigation is required?"

Senior advocate Rajeev Dhavan, appearing for Perarivalan, said that further probe is required as CBI had only probed the incident in which Gandhi got killed and it did not go beyond the "boom theory".

"What was followed by CBI was a 'boom theory'. That is there is a death, followed by an investigation into the boom and trial focusing on the boom.

But they have not gone into whether there was a larger conspiracy behind the bomb blast... It is this question which requires investigation," Dhavan said.

To this, the bench said, "So the boom is over, the trial is over and you say there is still something more to it?"

Dhavan replied, "Yes. The TADA court said there is more to it. It asked CBI to investigate who the real conspirators were."

Perarivalan had also referred to the inquiry report of the Jain Commission which formed the basis for the TADA court's decision for a further probe to identify role of individuals to uncover the larger conspiracy in the assassination.

The convict had alleged that CBI and MDMA, which were entrusted with the task to probe the facts, have not done their work properly.

"The grievance of the petitioner is that the designated TADA Court was monitoring the pending investigation on papers only, but without knowing actual facts of the investigation being conducted by CBI (MDMA) for the last about 17 years."

"The TADA Court merely collected sealed covers cluelessly that too in-chambers vide in-camera proceedings from the investigating agency every three months once without even opening the said covers for so many years," the plea said.

Rajiv Gandhi was assassinated on May 21, 1991, at Sriperumbudur in Tamil Nadu.