Bilkis Bano's petition against remission of sentences of 11 murder, rape convicts dismissed by SC

New Delhi: The Supreme Court has denied Bilkis Bano's request for a review of the apex court's May 13 ruling, which stated that an accused who had been convicted of gangrape and multiple murders should have his or her sentence commuted in accordance with Gujarat's legal framework in effect at the time of the conviction, where the crime was committed.

Justices Ajay Rastogi and Vikram Nath's two-judge bench dismissed the review petition that Bano submitted through advocate Shobha Gupta.

In the review petition, Bano said that Maharashtra's remission policy should be applied in the present case, instead of the 1992 remission policy of Gujarat since the trial had happened in Maharashtra.

The top court's judgment came on a petition filed by one of the convicts, Radheshyam Bhagwandas Shah seeking direction to Gujarat to consider his application for premature release under the 1992 policy, which was existing at the time of his conviction.

Bano has also filed a separate petition against the release of 11 men convicted of gang-raping her in the 2002 Gujarat riots, and also accused of multiple murders, saying the release of all the convicts came as a shock not only to the petitioner, but to her grown-up daughters, to her family, but also the society at large, nationally, and internationally.

The plea said: "The premature release of all the convicts came as a shock not only to the petitioner, to her grown-up daughters, to her family, but also the society at large, nationally and internationally, and the society across segments had shown their anger, disappointment, distrust and protest to the clemency shown by the Government by releasing criminals like the 11 convicts of the case."

On December 13, Supreme Court judge Justice Bela M. Trivedi recused from hearing the petition filed by Bano.

The matter is likely to be listed before another bench of the apex court for hearing.

Bano said she was extremely-extremely hurt, disturbed, and full of dejection with the early release and sudden and traumatising presence and existence of 11 of her rapists who brutally gang raped her while she was five months pregnant and inflicted on her person and soul extreme level of violence and brutality.

On March 3, 2002, when Prime Minister Narendra Modi was the chief minister of Gujarat, eleven men gang-raped Bano in a village close to Ahmedabad. She was 19 years old and pregnant. Her three-year-old daughter was one of fourteen family members who were killed in the violence.

The Gujarat government approved the men's application under its remission policy, and on August 15 they were released from a Godhra jail. After being released that day, they were met with sweets from their family members. Outrage erupted as a member of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh's members also congratulated them.

With inputs from agencies