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Synopsis

A special bench of Justices BV Nagarathna and Ujjal Bhuyan today dismissed the applications filed by the convicts in the Bilkis Bano case seeking an extension of four to six weeks to surrender before the concerned jails.

Court noted that the pleas were devoid of merits. Notably, the reasons cited by the convicts' included issues of ill health, sons' marriage, upcoming harvest season, fixing son's marriage, etc.

Yesterday, Senior Advocate Chitambresh had mentioned the instant plea by a convict before Justice Nagarathna led bench, who agreed to hear the same.

On January 18, 2024, a division bench of the Supreme Court had quashed the Gujarat Government's order granting remission to 11 convicts who had gangraped Bilkis Bano in Gujarat in 2002.

"We fail to understand why the state of Gujarat did not file a review petition against the direction of this court asking it to consider the remission applications, when the appropriate government was in fact the State of Maharashtra.", said a bench of Justices BV Nagarathna and Ujjal Bhuyan.

Court further called the impugned orders to be a usurpation of power by the state of Gujarat. Additionally, the bench had refused to accept the plea of liberty made by the 11 convicts and directed them to report to the concerned jails within two weeks.

In October last year, Supreme Court had reserved its judgment in the pleas filed by Bilkis Bano and different PIL petitioners challenging the remission granted to 11 convicts who had gangraped Bano in Gujarat in 2002.

Supreme Court in July 2023 had started hearing the final arguments in all pleas filed against the remission granted to 11 convicts.  Earlier, the Supreme Court had constituted a bench of Justices KM Joseph and BV Nagarathna to hear the petition filed by rape survivor Bano, but due to Justice Joseph's retirement, the bench's composition changed.

In her petition, Bano stated that she was not even made party respondent by the accused persons in the writ petition concerning remission and that this was the reason that she had absolutely no information of the filing or pendency of the said writ petition or the order passed therein by the Top Court till the writ petitioner and other 10 co-convicts/prisoners were prematurely released on 15.08.2022.

She submitted that the accused persons concealed important documents/ material from the Supreme Court which are very necessary for proper adjudication of the review petition and issue in hand, the present petitioner would therefore be filing an application seeking permission to bring on record additional facts and documents.

Case Title: Bilkis Yakub Rasool vs. Union of India & Ors.