Bilkis Bano case: Supreme Court to deliver judgment on convicts remission today

The Supreme Court will deliver its judgment in connection with the remission granted to the convicts in the Bilkis Bano case case on Monday, January 8. The Supreme Court had earlier heard a batch of pleas that challenged the remission granted to convicts in the Bilkis Bano gangrape case.

A bench of Justices B V Nagarathna and Ujjal Bhuyan had on October 12 last year reserved its verdict after an 11-day hearing on the petitions, including the one filed by Bano.

The Gujarat government had released the 11 convicts in the Bilkis Bano case, who were sentenced to life imprisonment, on August 15, 2022. All the 11 life-term convicts in the case were released as per the remission policy prevalent in Gujarat at the time of their conviction in 2008.

During the post-Godhra riots in March 2002, Bano was allegedly gang-raped and left to die with 14 members of her family, including her three-year-old daughter. She was five months pregnant when rioters attacked her family in Vadodara.

In October last year, the Supreme Court had directed the Centre and Gujarat government to submit the original records related to the remission granted to 11 convicts, news agency ANI reported.

The pleas were filed by the National Federation of Indian Women, whose General Secretary is Annie Raja, Member of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) Subhashini Ali, journalist Revati Laul, social activist and professor Roop Rekha Verma and TMC MP Mahua Moitra.

The pleas said they challenged the order of competent authority of the government of Gujarat by way of which 11 persons who were accused in a set of heinous offenses committed in Gujarat were allowed to walk free on August 15, 2022, under remission being extended to them.

The Gujarat government, in its affidavit, had defended remission granted to convicts, saying they completed 14 years of sentence in prison and their "behavior was found to be good".

The State government had also said it has considered the cases of all 11 convicts as per the policy of 1992 and remission was granted on August 10, 2022, and the Central government also approved the release of convicts.