What’s government trying to hide?

The 11 men who were serving life terms for the gang rape of Bilkis Bano were released by the Gujarat government last year

Some observations made by the Supreme Court and the positions taken by the central government and the Gujarat government during the hearing on the petitions challenging the grant of remission to the 11 convicts in the Bilkis Bano case are very revealing, and frame the important issues that need to be decided in the case. The 11 men who were serving life terms for the gang rape of Bilkis Bano and the murder of 14 of her family members during the 2002 Gujarat riots were released by the Gujarat government last year. The court highlighted the gravity of the case when it said that what happened to Bilkis Bano could happen to anybody and that it was not an ordinary crime of rape and murder. Implicit in the court’s observation was that the seriousness of the crime committed by a convict should be considered when a decision is taken on remission of sentence.

The court also underlined the need for application of mind by the government and the standards to be followed in a case of remission. It mentioned the Venkata Reddy case of 2006 in which the Supreme Court set aside the remission of the sentence of a convict in Andhra Pradesh. The man had been released because he “was a good Congressman”. The court had then said that the powers of clemency cannot be exercised “on the grounds of religion, caste and political affiliation and doing so would be tantamount to utter disregard of the rule of law”. The court’s remark is relevant in view of a justification advanced for the release of the Gujarat convicts. It was claimed that they deserved clemency because they were “sanskari Brahmins”, though this was not the officially cited reason. Other issues that came up in the court were the extraordinarily generous parole period the convicts had enjoyed and the persistent requests for adjournment of hearings from one or the other convict. These are issues that have a special relevance in the case, though some of them are common in many similar cases.

But the most important issue that engaged the court’s attention was the refusal of the governments to provide the relevant files to the court. It was claimed that the files were privileged and could not be presented in court. The court warned the governments of contempt if the files were not provided. It also said it would draw its own conclusions if the material on the basis of which the remission decision was taken was not available. The unwillingness of the government to provide information is a major problem faced by courts now. This does not reflect well on the government’s respect for the rule of law and the judiciary.