Supreme Court to hear petitions challenging remission of sentence to convicts in Bilkis Bano case

Bilkis Banocase: The Supreme Court will hear today (on March 27) petitions challenging the remission of sentence of 11 convicts in the Bilkis Bano gangrape case during the 2002 Gujarat riots.

A bench of Justices KM Joseph and VB Nagaratna will hear petitions filed by several political and civil rights activists and a writ petition filed by Bano.

CJI DY Chandrachud had on March 22 directed urgent listing of the matter and agreed to set up a new bench to hear the petitions.

Significantly, on January 4, the matter came up before the bench of Justice Ajay Rastogi and Justice Bela M Trivedi, but Justice Trivedi recused himself from hearing the matter without assigning any reason.

Let us tell you, all the 11 convicts were given exemption from punishment by the Gujarat government and were released on August 15 last year.

All the convicts were released prematurely

Bilkis Bano has said in her pending writ petition that the state government passed a 'mechanical order' completely ignoring the law laid down by the Supreme Court.

He said, 'The premature release of the convicts in the famous Bilkis Bano case has shaken the conscience of the society and resulted in several agitations across the country.'

It states, 'When the country was celebrating its 76th Independence Day, all the convicts were released prematurely and they were publicly garlanded and honored and sweets were distributed.'

Bilkis Bano was 21 years old at the time of the incident

PILs filed by Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M) leader Subhashini Ali, independent journalist Revati Lal, former Lucknow University Vice-Chancellor Roop Rekha Verma and Trinamool Congress (TMC) MP Mahua Moitra are pending before the apex court against the release of the convicts. .

Bilkis was 21 years old at the time of the incident and was also five months pregnant.

She was gang-raped and seven members of her family, including a three-year-old daughter, were killed during the riots that broke out after a compartment of the Sabarmati Express train was set on fire at Godhra.

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