New Delhi: The Supreme Court will hear on March 27 a batch of pleas difficult the remission of the sentence of 11 convicts within the Bilkis Bano gang-rape case that additionally entails the killing of seven members of her household through the 2002 Gujarat riots. A bench of justices KM Joseph and BV Nagarathna will hear the pleas filed by a number of political and civil rights activists, and a writ petition filed by Bano.
On March 22, Chief Justice DY Chandrachud directed the matter for pressing itemizing and agreed to represent a brand new bench to listen to the batch of pleas. On January 4, a bench comprising justices Ajay Rastogi and Bela M Trivedi took up the petition filed by Bano and the opposite pleas. However, Justice Trivedi recused from listening to the case with out citing any motive.
Bano had moved the apex court docket on November 30 final yr difficult the “premature” launch of 11 lifers by the state authorities, saying it has “shaken the conscience of society”.
Besides the plea difficult the discharge of the convicts, the gang rape survivor had additionally filed a separate petition in search of a overview of the apex court docket’s May 13, 2022, order on a plea by a convict. The overview plea was later dismissed in December final yr. All 11 convicts have been granted remission by the Gujarat authorities and launched on August 15 final yr.
The sufferer, in her pending writ petition, has mentioned the state authorities handed a “mechanical order” fully ignoring the requirement of legislation as laid down by the Supreme Court.
“The en-masse premature release of the convicts in the much talked about the case of Bilkis Bano has shaken the conscience of the society and resulted in a number of agitations across the country,” she has mentioned.
Referring to previous verdicts, the plea mentioned en-masse remissions will not be permissible and, furthermore, such a aid can’t be sought or granted as a matter of proper with out analyzing the case of every convict individually primarily based on their peculiar details and position performed by them within the crime.
“The present writ petition challenging the decision of the state/central government granting remission to all the 11 convicts and releasing them prematurely in one of the most gruesome crimes of extreme inhuman violence and brutality,” it mentioned.
The plea, which gave minute particulars of the crime, mentioned Bano and her grown-up daughters have been “shell-shocked with this sudden development”.
“When the nation was celebrating its 76th Independence Day, all the convicts were released prematurely and were garlanded and felicitated in full public glare and sweets were circulated,” it mentioned.
The prime court docket seized of PILs filed by CPI(M) chief Subhashini Ali, Revati Laul, an impartial journalist, Roop Rekha Verma, who’s a former vice chancellor of the Lucknow University, and TMC MP Mahua Moitra in opposition to the discharge of the convicts.
Bano was 21 years previous and 5 months pregnant when she was gang-raped whereas fleeing the riots that broke out after the Godhra practice burning incident. Her three-year-old daughter was among the many seven members of the family killed.
The investigation within the case was handed over to the CBI and the trial was transferred to a Maharashtra court docket by the Supreme Court. A particular CBI court docket in Mumbai had on January 21, 2008 sentenced the 11 to life imprisonment on prices of gang-rape of Bano and homicide of seven members of her household.
Their conviction was later upheld by the Bombay High Court and the Supreme Court. The 11 males convicted within the case walked out of the Godhra sub-jail on August 15, final yr, after the Gujarat authorities allowed their launch underneath its remission coverage. They had accomplished greater than 15 years in jail.
