The Central Bureau of Investigation on Monday said the plea filed by AG Perarivalan against his conviction in the Rajiv Gandhi assassination case was devoid of any merits, PTI reported.

Perarivalan, and two other convicts – Murugan and Santhan – are serving life imprisonment sentences in the case. The Supreme Court had commuted his death penalty to life in jail in 2014. Perarivalan has spent 26 years in jail – 23 of those in solitary confinement.

Perarivalan had moved the Supreme Court on January 24 seeking a recall of its 1999 conviction against him, claiming that he was not aware of the conspiracy. The court had said the questions raised by him were serious and debatable. The Supreme Court bench had directed the CBI to file a reply in the matter.

The CBI’s Multi Disciplinary Monitoring Agency in its affidavit on Monday said Perarivalan’s role in the conspiracy, along with that of other convicts, has already been upheld by the Supreme Court. The plea was not maintainable as it seeks to reopen the whole matter on merits that are not permissible, it said. The agency also recommended imposing a heavy fine on Perarivalan, PTI reported.

In April 2016, the Centre had declined the Tamil Nadu government’s proposal to release the seven prisoners. In November 2017, the top court had asked the Narendra Modi government if it wanted to set the convicts free.

In a sworn statement to the court on October 27, 2017, former CBI officer V Thiagarajan said the agency had omitted the part of Perarivalan’s confession where he said he had “absolutely no idea” what the two batteries will be used for. Thiagarajan said he did not record that bit “because it would have been an exculpatory statement and hence the whole purpose of recording the confessional statement would be lost”.