New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Tuesday, October 18, said it will hear on November 29 the pleas challenging the remission of sentence and release of 11 convicts in the 2002 Bilkis Bano gang-rape case and murder of her 14 family members during the Gujarat riots.
A bench of Justices Ajay Rastogi and C.T. Ravikumar directed that the reply filed by the Gujarat government be made available to all parties.
The apex court also noted that the Gujarat government’s reply to the pleas challenging the remission granted to the convicts in the case is “very bulky” wherein a series of judgments have been quoted but factual statements are missing.
“I have not come across a counter affidavit where a series of judgments are quoted. Factual statement should have been made. A very bulky counter. Where is the factual statement, where is the application of mind?” a bench headed by Justice Ajay Rastogi observed.
The petitioners have been given time to file their reply to the affidavit filed by the Gujarat government.
In August, senior Communist Party of India (Marxist) leader Subhashini Ali, independent journalist and filmmaker Revati Laul, and former philosophy professor and activist Roop Rekha Varma filed the PIL against the remission of the sentence of the convicts and their release.
According to LiveLaw, the top court bench is also considering the petitions filed by Trinamool Congress MP Mahua Moitra, ex-IPS officer Meeran Chadha Borwankar, ex-IFS officer Madhu Badhuri, and activist Jagdeep Chhokar.
Also read: Understanding the Remission Policy That Led to the Release of Bilkis Bano’s Rapists
The Gujarat government on October 17 had told the apex court that the petitioners challenging the remission are nothing but an “interloper” and a “busybody”.
It had also said that since the investigation in the case was carried out by the Central Bureau of Investigation, it had obtained “suitable orders” for the grant of remission of the convicts from the Union government.
Bilkis Bano was 21 years old at the time of the crime. She was also five months pregnant when she was gang-raped. Fourteen of her family members, including her three-year-old daughter, were killed in the brutal attack in Gujarat’s Dahod district.
The 11 men convicted in the case walked out free from the Godhra sub-jail on August 15 after the Gujarat government allowed their release under its remission policy. The order has come under severe criticism from several quarters, with critics saying that the perpetrators of such heinous crimes should not have been granted remission.
(With inputs from PTI)