India's Supreme Court has commuted the death sentences of three men convicted of plotting the 1991 assassination of former prime minister Rajiv Gandhi.
Chief Justice P Sathasivam spared the men, citing delays in deciding their mercy plea.
Murugan, Santhan and Perarivalan were members of the Tamil Tiger rebels who were defeated by Sri Lanka in 2009.
Gandhi's murder was seen as retaliation for his having sent Indian peacekeepers to Sri Lanka in 1987.
In 2006, the Tigers expressed 'regret' for the murder which had shocked India.
The three convicts have been in jail for more than 20 years.
On Tuesday morning, the Supreme Court bench, headed by Chief Justice P Sathasivam, said the long time taken by the government to decide the mercy pleas - 11 years - was the ground for commuting the death sentences.
'We are confident that the mercy plea can be decided much faster than what is being done now,' Justice Sathasivam was quoted as saying by the Press Trust of India news agency.
'We implore the government to render advice in a reasonable amount of time for taking a decision on mercy pleas,' he added.
'Mental anguish'
'The Supreme Court said it is inhuman to keep somebody under the shadow of the noose for so long,' the men's lawyer, Yug Mohit Chaudhry, told BBC Hindi.
'The death penalty cannot be executed after such a long delay and the gover.