The hanging of the three men sentenced to death for conspiring to assassinate former prime minister Rajiv Gandhi was stayed for eight weeks by the Madras High Court on Tuesday, coinciding with the Tamil Nadu assembly passing a resolution asking President Pratibha Patil to review the mercy petitions.

Hearing the petitions filed by Murugan alias Sriharan, T. Suthendraraja alias Santhan and A.G. Perarivalan alias Arivu that their death sentence be commuted, Justices C. Nagappan and M. Satyanarayanan ordered an interim stay on the hanging pending disposal of the case.

The court has ordered notice to the union government returnable in eight weeks.

On August 11, President Pratibha Patil rejected the mercy petitions of the three, all of whom are linked to the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) and sentenced to death for their involvement in Gandhi's 1991 assassination. They were scheduled to be hanged on September 9.

Rajiv Gandhi, who was prime minister 1984-89, was killed by a suicide bomber called Dhanu at an election rally in Sriperumbudur near Chennai on May 21. Fourteen other people also lost their lives in the blast.

The Tamil Nadu assembly also moved a resolution asking the president to review her decision on the mercy plea and commute the death sentence to life imprisonment.

Citing the concern of the people of Tamil Nadu and the appeals by various political parties, Chief Minister J. Jayalalithaa said the resolution was moved on behalf of the state government.

The clemency petition was rejected by the Indian president after 11 years and the delay is prima facie wrong, senior counsel Ram Jethmalani said while arguing for Perarivalan.

He said a notice seeking explanation for the delay should be sent.

Urging speedy disposal of mercy petitions, Jethmalani had said earlier that if there was a delay of two years, then the death sentence would be commuted to life imprisonment.

"Perhaps the delay in deciding on the mercy petition made the high court grant the stay. The Rajiv Gandhi assassination case is one of the rarest of rare cases where death sentence is warranted," political commentator Cho Ramaswamy said.

"Apart from Rajiv Gandhi, several others got killed in the blast," he added.

According to him, the 'save the three' chorus sung by almost all parties was politically motivated.

Added Gnani, another political analyst: "The assembly could have passed a resolution against death penalty in general and not specifying the three alone. That would have been a shrewd move on the part of Jayalalithaa."

Vaiko, MDMK general secretary and the counsel on record for Perarivalan, also thanked Jayalalithaa for passing the resolution in the assembly.

"No other state assembly has passed such a resolution. The resolution is like a beacon light for other state governments and the central government," he said in a statement.

According to Vaiko, the judges agreed to his plea that the three convicts now in isolated cells should be allowed to move around freely inside the prison.

PMK founder S. Ramadoss also thanked Jayalalithaa for passing the resolution and urged her to exert pressure on the president to agree to the same.

The Communist Party of India (CPI) welcomed the high court's interim stay and the assembly resolution and cancelled the statewide fasting protest from September 3.