SC dismisses review plea of Bilkis Bano against release of her rapists

The Supreme Court dismissed Bilkis Bano's review petition on the May 2022 verdict. The Supreme Court, in its May 2022 judgement, had said that the Gujarat government has the jurisdiction to decide the pardon applications of 11 convicts who were sentenced to life imprisonment for gangrape and murder during the 2002 Gujarat riots. A bench headed by Justice Rastogi ruled in May, 2022 that the Gujarat government had jurisdiction to consider the request for exemption, as the offence had taken place in Gujarat. The Gujarat High Court earlier held that the exemption is to be considered by the State of Maharashtra, as the trial was conducted in Mumbai on transfer from Gujarat. Later on August 15, 2022, all eleven convicts were released. Visuals of the hero's reception to the released convicts went viral on social media, triggering outrage from several sections. In this background, public interest litigations were filed in the Supreme Court questioning the relief granted to the convicts.

CPI(M) leader Subhashini Ali, journalist Revati Lal, TMC MP Mahua Moitra, former IPS officer Meera Chadha Borwankar and some other former civil servants, National Federation of Indian Women etc. are some of the petitioners. Responding to the petitions, the Gujarat government told the Supreme Court in an affidavit that the decision was taken after the approval of the central government in view of the good behavior of the convicts and the completion of 14 years of their sentence.

The state's affidavit revealed that the CBI and the presiding judge of the trial court (special CBI court in Mumbai) objected to the release of the convicts on the ground that the crime was serious and heinous. The annexures to the state's affidavit reveal that one of the convicts was arrested in 2020 for sexually assaulting a woman while he was out on parole. Background The crime took place during the 2002 communal riots in Gujarat. Five months pregnant, Bilkis Bano, who was then around 19 years old, was on the run from her village in Dahod district along with her family members. When they reached Chhapparwad village on the outskirts of Bilkis, their mother and three other women were raped and 14 members of their family, including their three-year-old daughter, were murdered. In view of the political influence of the accused persons and the sensitivity of the case, the investigation was handed over to the CBI as directed by the Supreme Court.

The Supreme Court also transferred the trial to Maharashtra. In 2008, a sessions court in Mumbai sentenced the accused to life imprisonment. After spending 15 years in jail, an accused approached the Supreme Court with his plea for premature release, which was first rejected by the Gujarat High Court on the grounds that the appropriate government would be that of Maharashtra and not Gujarat. The Supreme Court on 13.05.2022 decided that the appropriate government to grant exemption would be the Government of Gujarat and directed it to consider the petition within a period of two months in terms of the exemption policy of 1992.