Bilkis Bano case: SC dismisses convicts’ plea for more time to surrender
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New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Friday said the reasons in the applications filed by the convicts in Bilkis Bano case, seeking more time to surrender, ‘have no merit’.
A bench of Justices B V Nagarathna and Ujjal Bhuyan dismissed their applications seeking postponement of surrender and report back to jail.
The convicts were sentenced to life for the gangrape of Bano and the murder of her family members during the 2002 Gujarat riots, The Indian Express reported.
Meanwhile, the deadline set by the Supreme Court for them to surrender expires on January 21.
The bench said that the reasons cited by the convicts ‘have no merit in as much as those reasons in no way prevent them from complying with our directions’.
Quashing the remission granted by the Gujarat government to the 11 convicts, the Supreme Court on January 8 ordered them to surrender to the jail authorities within two weeks.
Afterwards, three of the convicts approached the Supreme Court seeking more time to surrender citing personal reasons including health issues.
Responding to their applications the court said, ‘We have heard learned senior counsel and counsel for the applicants and the counsel for the non-applicants also. The reasons cited by applicants to seek postponement of surrender and report back to jail have no merit inasmuch as those reasons in no way prevent them from complying with our directions. Hence the MAs [miscellaneous applications] are dismissed. Pending applications if any also stand disposed.’