The
Hindu: Chennai: Saturday, 08 November 2014.
Had he not
petitioned the Ministry of Home Affairs, Shanmugasundaram would have probably
spent the rest of his life in jail.
Had he not
petitioned the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA), M.R. Shanmugasundaram would have
spent the rest of his life in Tiruchi Central Prison.
Shanmugasundaram,
an Indian national, was convicted under the provisions of the Poison, Opium and
Dangerous (Amended) Act in a case of drug offence and awarded the death
sentence by the Negombo High Court (Sri Lanka) in 1994.
The
punishment was commuted to life sentence through a presidential pardon and then
to 25 years in prison.
Under a SAARC
exchange agreement, Shanmugasundaram was transferred to Tiruchi Central Prison
in 2013.
A couple of
months before he completed 25 years in prison (taking the remand period into consideration),
he pressed jail officials for his release. However, the authorities maintained
that there was no record to facilitate his release and he had to undergo
imprisonment for life.
Left with no
other option, Shanmugasundaram sent a petition under the Right to Information
Act to the MHA to know the status of his imprisonment in Tiruchi Central
Prison.
When the
matter was referred to the Ministry of External Affairs, the officials wrote
back to the convict, stating that the information sought by him should be
obtained from the Tamil Nadu government. However, the MEA also sought a
clarification from Sri Lankan prison authorities.
After it was
confirmed that Shanmugasundaram’s claims were true and that his imprisonment
was commuted to 25 years, the MHA informed the State government that the
convict was entitled to release.
“Based on a
specific order from the MHA, we released Shanmugasundaram from Tiruchi Central
Prison recently.
Since there
were no records here on the period of his imprisonment, we got it clarified
through proper channel,” a senior prison official said.
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