The Madras High Court granted a 30-day parole for AG Perarivalan, who is in prison in the Rajiv Gandhi Assassination case. The court’s decision comes weeks after the government of Tamil Nadu rejected Perarivalan’s mother Arputhammal’s plea seeking a parole for her son for 90 days due to COVID-19 risks.

A bench consisting of Justice N Kirubakaran and Justice P Velmurugan ordered that Perarivalan be granted parole for 30 days. The order came on a habeas corpus plea filed by his mother Arputhammal citing her son’s health condition, which was initially rejected by the state government. The court rejected the state government’s argument that it was safer to stay inside the prison during the pandemic.

In an earlier hearing, R Prabhavathi, the Additional Public Prosecutor said that the state had rejected the plea because Perarivalan was not eligible to take ordinary leave under the prison rules. Reports also stated that the Home Department had also submitted that parole cannot be granted on the grounds mentioned by Arputhammal since Standard Operating Procedures were being followed inside the prisons to contain the spread of COVID-19 among the prisoners. The Tamil Nadu Prisons Department had also rejected Perarivalan’s parole plea stating that he was not eligible for parole this year since he had already been given parole in 2017 and 2019.

According to reports, Perarivalan has already availed 60 days of ordinary leave and he was granted parole most recently from November 12, 2019 to January 12, 2020. He has served 30 years in prison after he was convicted in the Rajiv Gandhi Assassination case along with Nalini, Murugan, Santhan, Robert Payas, Rvaichandran and Jayakumar. He has been in prison from 1991 and has been serving life imprisonment in Vellore Central Prison. He was granted his first parole since 1991 in 2017 to attend to his ailing father. 

Read: ‘Feel remorse over his lost years’: CBI man tells SC Perarivalan unaware about Rajiv conspiracy