New Delhi, Nov 4 (TIWN) The Supreme Court on Tuesday expressed its dissatisfaction over the pendency of pardon plea of a convict in the Rajiv Gandhi assassination case for more than two years with the Tamil Nadu Governor.

The top court asked the counsel for petitioner A.G. Perarivalan, who is serving life sentence, whether the court can exercise its jurisdiction under Article 142 of the constitution to request the governor to decide his plea of pardon filed under Article 161, which empowers a governor to pardon a convict in any criminal case. 

A bench of Justices L. Nageswara Rao, Hemant Gupta and Ajay Rastogi said, “We don’t want to exercise our jurisdiction at this stage but we are not happy that recommendation made by the government is pending for two years.”  The bench was hearing a plea of the 46-year-old Perarivalan, who has sought suspension of his life sentence in the case till the CBI-led Multi-Disciplinary Monitoring Agency (MDMA) probe is completed.