Over 130 former bureaucrats on Saturday wrote an open letter to the Chief Justice of India (CJI) against the premature release of 11 convicts in the Bilkis Bano gang rape case, urging him to rectify the "grossly wrong verdict". .

He urged the Chief Justice to set aside the order passed by the Gujarat government and send back 11 people convicted of gang rape and murder to serve life imprisonment.

"Like most of our country, we are shocked by what happened in Gujarat a few days ago on the 75th anniversary of India's independence," the letter said in a letter written under the aegis of the Constitutional Conduct Group. The 134 people whose signatures are there include former Lieutenant Governor of Delhi Najeeb Jung, former cabinet secretary K.

M. Chandrashekhar, former foreign secretaries Shivshankar Menon and Sujata Singh and former home secretary G.

Of.

Pillai included.

Justice Uday Umesh Lalit took oath as the 49th Chief Justice of India on Saturday.

The Supreme Court had on August 25 issued notices to the Center and the Gujarat government on a petition challenging the release of 11 convicts in the gang-rape of Bilkis Bano and the murder of his family members.

The former bureaucrats said there is "outrage in the country" over the release of the convicts. The court has the jurisdiction through which it can rectify this very wrong decision.

At that time she was 21 years old and she was five months pregnant.

His three-year-old daughter was also among those who were murdered during this period.

In January 2008, a special CBI court in Mumbai had convicted all the 11 accused and sentenced them to life imprisonment.

Later this decision was also upheld by the Bombay High Court.

The letter said that after serving a 15-year jail term, one of the accused, Radheshyam Shah, had approached the Supreme Court seeking his premature release.

It said that the Supreme Court had also directed on Radheshyam Shah's petition that the application for premature release by the Gujarat government be considered within two months under the amnesty policy of July 9, 1992.

"We are astonished as to why the Supreme Court considered the matter so urgent that it had to take a decision within two months," the letter said.

At the same time, the Supreme Court ordered that the matter should be investigated in accordance with Gujarat's 1992 amnesty policy and not as per its present policy. And urge the 11 people convicted of gang rape and murder to be sent back to jail to serve life imprisonment.