The Chennai High Court on Tuesday stayed the hanging of all the three convicts in the Rajiv Gandhi assasination case. The execution of these three convicts was scheduled for 9 September. Hearing their mercy petition the High Court gave interim relief for eight weeks to the convicts Murugan alias Sriharan, Santhan and Perarivalan alias Arivu.

The three convicts filed a petition on the grounds that the President of India took 11 years to reject their mercy pleas. Senior Counsel Ram Jethmalani appeared for the convicts in a case that has political overtones especially in Tamil Nadu. The Centre and the Tamil Nadu government will file a counter affidavit in the case within eight weeks in the assassination case of the former prime minister of India. Meanwhile, the Tamil Nadu Assembly also adopted a resolution moved by the J Jayalalithaa government urging the President to consider the clemency petition and commute their death sentence to life sentence.

Jethmalani argued in the court that since there has been a delay of over 11 years in disposing off the mercy petition, so the death sentence of the three convicts is "illegal" and "unconstitutional."

"It has 11 years and four months delay in disposing off the petition. The delay unless properly explained and justified makes death penalty immoral, illegal and according to me unconstitutional. The underlying legal argument is by delay in disposing off case, you are guilty for suffering of these convicts. The submission is that whether delay is justified. The court should send notice and seek explanation what they were doing for all these 11 years," argued Jethmalani.

K Perarivalan alias Arivu is the only Indian amongst the three men who are facing the death sentence in the Rajiv Gandhi assassination case on September 9. The former prime minister was assassinated by a team of Liberation Tiger of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) terrorists on May 21, 1991 at Sriperumbudur in Tamil Nadu during the Lok Sabha election campaign.