Bilkis Bano case: Women activists move SC against remission of convicts

The apex court had earlier asked the Gujarat government to consider the plea of remission

A group of women activists have approached the Supreme Court challenging the remission granted to 11 people who were convicted for killing 14 people and for the gang-rape of Bilkis Bano during the 2002 Gujarat riots.

The top court on Tuesday agreed to consider their plea for urgent hearing. The activists, who filed the plea included Subhashini Ali, Revati Laul, Roop Rekha Verma, and TMC MP Mahua Moitra.

Senior advocate Kapil Sibal mentioned the matter for urgent hearing before a bench presided over by Chief Justice N V Ramana.

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He said that the petition challenged the remission order in the case in which a pregnant woman was raped and people were killed.

The bench sought to know if the remission was granted by virtue of the top court order.

To this, Sibal said that the apex court merely directed the state to consider the matter, and they are challenging the remission, not the top court's order.

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The bench said it would go through the papers and decide as the counsel insisted for posting the matter for consideration on Wednesday.

The plea before the top court claimed the state government has mechanically granted the "wholesale" release of 11 convicts without considering each individual case on merits as mandated in the Maru Ram case (1980).

Bilkis Bano, who was pregnant at the time, was gang-raped and her three-year-old daughter, Saleha, was among the 14 people killed by a mob in 2002 in Dahod in Gujarat during the violence that broke out across the state after the Sabarmati Express was attacked in Godhra and 59 passengers, mainly 'kar sewaks', were burnt to death.

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Eleven convicts, sentenced to life imprisonment, were released from the Godhra jail on August 15 after the Gujarat government allowed their release under its remission policy. The convicts had completed more than 15 years in jail.

Notably, acting on a plea by one of the convicts Radheshyam Bhagwandas alias Lala Vakil, a Supreme Court's bench led by Justice Ajay Rastogi had on May 13, 2022 directed the Gujarat government to take a decision within two months on an application for pre-mature release.

In January 2008, a special CBI court in Mumbai had sentenced the convicts to life imprisonment for the gang-rape and murder of seven members of Bilkis Bano's family. The Bombay High Court upheld their conviction.