Though the TADA court had sentenced 26 persons to death in the case, the Supreme Court, in 1999, acquitted 19 persons and convicted only seven. Of the seven, Nalini, Murugan, Santhan and Perarivalan were awarded death sentences while the other three were sentenced to life imprisonment. In 2014, the Supreme Court commuted the death sentences of the four convicts to life, citing delays in deciding on their mercy pleas.
It was in December 2015 that Perarivalan filed a mercy plea again after undergoing solitary confinement for 24 years, and in the next year, the Tamil Nadu government sent a proposal to the Union government seeking remission of all seven convicts.
In March 2016, the Tamil Nadu government had sent a letter to the Union government seeking their concurrence in releasing the convicts. However, the Union government deferred taking a decision for two years. In April 2018, the Ministry of Home Affairs replied to the state government saying that it did not concur in releasing the…