The apex court in its Jan 21 judgment held that inordinate, unexplained and unreasonable delay in deciding the mercy petition of the death row convicts was a ground for commutation of death to life imprisonment.
Rajiv Gandhi, who was the prime minister 1984-89, was killed by Dhanu, a Sri Lankan suicide bomber from the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, at an election rally in Sriperumbudur near Chennai May 21, 1991.
In 1998, all the 26 accused in the case were sentenced to death by a special trial court.
In 1999, the Supreme Court confirmed the death sentences of four - Murugan, Santhan, Perarivalan and Nalini - while the capital punishment to the others was reduced to varying terms of imprisonment.
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