Bilkis Bano Case: Apex Court Agrees to Examine Plea Against Remission of 11 Convicts
(Judicial Quest News Network)
The Apex Court on Tuesday agreed to examine the request to take up urgent hearing, petitions challenging the remission granted to 11 convicts in the Bilkis Bano case.
Chief Justice of India NV Ramana told Advocate Aparna Bhat and Senior Advocate Kapil Sibal to file the case records. MS Bhat pressed the court to list the petition on Wednesday itself.
The petition challenging the pre-mature release of the convicts has been filed by Subhasini Ali, a member of the Communist party of India (Marxist), Journalist Revati Laul and Professor Roop Rekha Varma.
The petition was mentioned before a bench of Chief Justice of India (CJI) NV Ramana, Justice Hima Kohli and Justice CT Ravikumar.
The 11 convicts who have been set free are Jaswant Nai, Govind Nai, Shailesh Bhatt, Radhyesham Shah, Bipin Chandra Joshi, Kesarbhai Vohania, Praseep Mordhiya, Bakabhai Vohia,Rajubhai Soni, Mitesh Bhat and Ramesh Chandana.
Gujarat Additional Chief Secretary (Home) Raj Kumar reportedly said that the convicts were released due to the “completion of 14 years” in jail and other factor such as age nature of the crime, behaviour in prison and so on.
The crime which happened during 2002 Gujarat riots, relates to the gang rape of Bilkis Bano and the murder of 14 of her family members, including her three year old daughter in a communal attack.Bilkis was the only survivor of the crime.
The Supreme Court had ordered a CBI probe into the case after Bano approached National human Rights Commission.
Later when Bano complained of death threats by the accused, the apex court in 2004 directed the trial to be transferred from Godhra in Gujarat to Maharashtra.
The Gujarat Government’s decision to remit the sentence of the 11 convicts has raised furious public outcry.There is a plethora of precedent to guide the apex court in April 2022, an Apex Court Bench led by Justice D.Y Chandrachud said that the State cannot exercise its remission powers arbitrarily.
In 2008, a session court in Mumbai convicted 11 persons for gangrape and murder and sentenced them to life imprisonment. The conviction was upheld by the Bombay High Court and Supreme Court.
On August 15, 2022, all the covicts were released from a jail in Godhra, after being granted remission by the Gujarat Government.
The court in on earlier decisions in State of Haryana v. Mohinder Singh (2000) had underscored that the grant of remission should be “informed, fair and Reasonable”.
Alos in Rajan v. Home Secretary, Home Department of Tamil Nadu (2019) “Grant of pre-mature release is not a matter of privilege but is the power coupled with duty, conferred on the appropriate government”.
