If Rajiv Gandhi killers can be freed, why can't I?: Man serving life for murdering wife asks Supreme Court

After spending 29 years in prison for killing his wife, Swami Shredhanand pleaded before Supreme Court on Wednesday that he should be freed because so were former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi's killers.

Before a bench of Chief Justice of India DY Chandrachud, Justices Hima Kohli and JB Pardiwala, Shradhanand's counsel Varun Thakur sought parity of treatment by courts. His argument was that his client had not received even a day of remission or parole while serving life, after it was proved that he killed his wife for money. Thakur told court that even those persons convicted of assassinating former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi have been recently released from prison after 30 years, even though they were convicted for life and their actions had killed 16 persons and had left 43 injured in 1991.

Thakur was referring to Supreme Court's decision of November 11, of releasing Nalini, Santhan, Murugan, Sriharan, Robert Payas, and Ravichandran on account of satisfactory behaviour they had shown and exercised its jurisdiction under article 142 of the constitution of India. They had been released after the top court had ordered release of AG Perarivalan, also a convict in the case pertaining to assassination of former Prime Minister.

Thakur told court that Swami Shradhanand was over 80 years old and that his was a classic case of violation of rights to equality, especially since he had been kept in solitary confinement and suffered from multiple ailments.

"It is to submit that petitioner have been serving tough imprisonment facing severe hardship of which over 3 years were spent in the dark confines of Belgaum Jail's condemned cells on death row. Again, since August 2008, I have been serving a sentence of life conviction in Bangalore prison under section 302 IPC," Shradhanand said.

Shradhanand's writ has been pending in court since 2014 and his death sentence was modified to life imprisonment on September 19, 2005. It is his case before top court that he has not been granted a single day of parole and that the state has failed to grant him rights under the provisions of the M.P. Jail Act and Articles 20(1) and 21 of the Constitution of India.

Swami Shradhanand had married Shakereh, the granddaughter of Mysore's Dewan, Sir Mirza Ismail in 1986. She was killed to usurp property worth 600 crore by mixing sedatives in her tea and thereafter burying her in a coffin in a backyard of his home in 1994. While Shradhanand was found guilty and sentenced to death by a trial court in 2000 and the Karnataka HC confirmed it, the Supreme Court altered it to imprisonment for life without any remission.