New Delhi, Apr 30: Nalini Sriharan, serving a life term for her role in the assassination of former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi, moved the Madras High Court on Wednesday, seeking release from jail on the basis of having completed 18 years of imprisonment with good conduct, police sources said.

Nalini's lawyer Duraimurugan filed an appeal on her behalf in the Madras High Court.

The lawyer, who has been representing Nalini, submitted the plea and said, "It's a pure coincidence that the plea comes after the highly publicised meeting with Priyanka."

Earlier this month, Priyanka Gandhi, daughter of Rajiv Gandhi, confirmed that she met Nalini Sriharan.

The secret meeting came to light after a lawyer filed an application under the Right to Information Act seeking information on the interaction that took place on March 19 at a special prison for women in Vellore.

Priyanka said she met Rajiv's murder accused Nalini to come to terms with her father's death.

Explaining her move to meet Nalini, Priyanka Gandhi said, "It is true that I met with Ms Nalini Srihaharan in Vellore Central Prison on 19th of March. I would like to say it was a purely personal visit that I undertook completely on my own initiative. I would be deeply grateful if this could be respected. I do not believe in anger, hatred and violence and I refuse to allow it any power over my life. Meeting Ms Nalini was my way of coming to peace with the violence and loss that I have experienced."

After the meeting, Nalini Sriharan had expressed herself and said that the meeting with Priyanka Gandhi was the singularly most emotional encounter that she had experienced.

Nalini is the only surviving member of the five-member squad that was recruited to assassinate Rajiv Gandhi. A suicide bomber, Subha had carried out the attack at Sriperumbudur in Tamil Nadu on May 21, 1991. Rajiv Gandhi and 17 others were killed on the spot.

Nalini, was originally sentenced to death, but her sentence was later commuted to life imprisonment on the intervention of Congress President Sonia Gandhi who pleaded for clemency on account of Nalini's five-year-old daughter.