Bilkis Bano Case: Supreme Court Dismisses Bano's Review Petition Against Remission Of Gangrape Convicts'

Recently, the Apex Court of India has dismissed a review petition by Bilkis Bano, who was gang-raped during the 2002 Gujrat riots, against the judgement that allows the Gujarat government to decide on the remission of the convicts. A Supreme Court bench led by Justice Ajay Rastogi had dismissed the petition earlier on December 13. The plea was for the apex court to take a re-look at its May 2022 judgment which allowed remissions for 11 convicts in the case.

The Supreme Court in its judgment delivered in May 2022 allowed the Gujarat government to decide on the remission application of the convicts as per the old 1992 policy as they were convicted in 2008 before the 2014 policy came into action. Based on the strength of this judgment, all convicts undergoing life term in the Bilkis Bano case were released. When she was gang-raped Bilkis Bano was 21-year-old and five months pregnant and was making an attempt to flee from the Gujarat riots that broke out as a result of the Godhra train burning incident.

Bano's three-year-old daughter was also among her seven family members killed at that time. The CBI had investigated the case, which got transferred to a Mumbai court following the orders of the Supreme Court. A special Mumbai CBI court had convicted and sentenced life imprisonment to all the 11 accused in the case on January 21, 2008. However, later, the Bombay High Court and the Supreme Court had upheld the conviction of 11 accused.

After the Gujarat government had allowed the release of the 11 convicted under its remission policy they were released from the Godhra sub-jail on August 15. By then they had completed more than 15 years in jail. Bilkis Bano had challenged the remission of sentence of 11 convicts in the case by the Gujarat government. She filed a separate plea seeking a review of the apex court's May 13, 2022, order on a plea by a convict in which the Supreme Court had asked the Gujarat government to consider the plea for the early release of the convicts in terms of its policy of July 9, 1992, the policy was about deciding a remission petition within a period of two months. In her plea against the grant of remission which had led to the release of the convicts on August 15, Bilkis Bano has said the state government passed a mechanical order completely ignoring the requirement of law as laid down by the Supreme Court.