The Central government on Tuesday opposed in the Supreme Court a plea by the convicts in the Rajiv Gandhi assassination case seeking to commute the death penalty to life sentence due to delay in deciding their mercy plea.

Opposing the plea, the Centre submitted in the SC that the death convicts did not go through torture, agony and dehumanising experience during pendency of their mercy pleas.

"There has been delay in deciding the mercy plea but the delay is not unreasonable, unexplainable and unconscionable to commute death sentence," the Centre's counsel said.

"It is not a fit case for commuting death sentence," the counsel added.

Meanwhile, arguments have completed with the SC reserving its verdict in the case.

Last week, the apex court had said that prisoners convicted in the case deserve death sentence while refusing to go into the merits of their conviction.

"They deserve death sentence, but the question is how long can they be kept in solitary confinement," a bench headed by Chief Justice P Sathasivam said, while restraining the counsel appearing for the death row convicts to argue on the merit of the conviction.

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