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The court said that Tamil Nadu has no power to release the convicts on its own and it has to consult the central government as the case was investigated by the CBI or Central Bureau of Investigation.

The court is hearing the Centre's petition against the Jayalalithaa government's decision to release seven people convicted for the former prime minister's assassination in 1991.

Tamil Nadu government had in August argued that a convict in Mahatma Gandhi's assassination, Gopal Vinayakram Godse, had been released in 1964 after being sentenced to a life term. Vinayakram Godse was the brother of Mahatma Gandhi's assassin Nathuram Godse.

Rajiv Gandhi was killed by a Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) suicide bomber while campaigning in Tamil Nadu's Sriperumbudur in May 1991.