Supreme Court assures Bilkis Bano of early hearing of her plea against remission to convicts

New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Tuesday assured Bilkis Bano, who was gang-raped and seven members of her family killed during the 2002 Gujarat riots, that her plea against the remission of the sentence of 11 convicts will be heard soon after the constitution of a new bench.

A bench of Chief Justice DY Chandrachud and justices PS Narasimha and JB Pardiwala assured Bano, represented through her lawyer Shobha Gupta, that the new bench will be formed at the earliest.

Gupta mentioned the matter for urgent hearing and said that a new bench needs to be constituted by the Chief Justice of India as Justice Bela M Trivedi recused from hearing the plea.

CJI Chandrachud said, "I will do so at the earliest. The matter will be listed soon". Earlier, on January 24, the hearing on Bano's plea challenging the remission of sentence of 11 convicts in the gang-rape case by the Gujarat government could not be held in the top court as the judges concerned were hearing a matter related to passive euthanasia as part of a five-judge Constitution bench.

On that day, the petition was listed for hearing before a bench of Justices Rastogi and CT Ravikumar.

Both Justices Rastogi and Ravikumar were then busy hearing, as part of a Constitution bench headed by Justice K M Joseph, the pleas seeking modification of guidelines on the execution of a "Living Will or Advance Medical Directive" for permitting passive euthanasia.

On January 4, Justice Trivedi had recused from hearing a batch of pleas challenging the remission of the sentence of 11 convicts in Bano's case. Bano had moved the apex court on November 30, 2022 challenging the "premature" release of 11 lifers by the state government, saying it has "shaken the conscience of society".

Besides the plea challenging the release of the convicts, the gang-rape survivor had also filed a separate petition seeking a review of the apex court's May 13, 2022 order on a plea by a convict.

In its May 13, 2022 order, the apex court had asked the state government to consider the plea of a convict for premature release in terms of its policy of July 9, 1992 which was applicable on the date of conviction and decide it within a period of two months.

All 11 convicts were granted remission by the Gujarat government and released on August 15, last year.

Bano's review plea against the May 13, 2022 order, however, was dismissed by the top court in December last year.

The victim, in her pending writ petition, has said the state government passed a "mechanical order" completely ignoring the requirement of law as laid down by the Supreme Court.

"The en-masse premature release of the convicts in the much talked about case of Bilkis Bano has shaken the conscience of the society and resulted in a number of agitations across the country," she has said in the plea.

Referring to past verdicts, the plea said en-masse remissions are not permissible and, moreover, such a relief cannot be sought or granted as a matter of right without examining the case of each convict individually based on their peculiar facts and role played by them in 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 said.

The plea, which gave minute details of the crime, said Bilkis and her grown-up daughters were "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 said.

The top court is already seized of PILs filed by CPI(M) leader Subhashini Ali, Revati Laul, an independent journalist, Roop Rekha Verma, who is a former vice chancellor of the Lucknow University, and TMC MP Mahua Moitra against the release of the convicts.

Bilkis Bano was 21 years old and five months pregnant when she was gang-raped while fleeing the riots that broke out after the Godhra train burning incident. Her three-year-old daughter was among the seven family members killed.

The investigation in the case was handed over to the CBI and the trial was transferred to a Maharashtra court by the Supreme Court.

A special CBI court in Mumbai had on January 21, 2008 sentenced the 11 to life imprisonment on charges of gang-rape of Bilkis Bano and murder of seven members of her family.

Their conviction was later upheld by the Bombay High Court and the Supreme Court.

The 11 men convicted in the case walked out of the Godhra sub-jail on August 15 after the Gujarat government allowed their release under its remission policy. They had completed more than 15 years in jail.

With inputs from PTI