SC dismisses Bilkis Bano's plea to review judgement under which rapists released

The Supreme Court has dismissed a review plea by Bilkis Bano against May 13, 2022 judgement which allowed the Gujarat government to decide upon remission of life terms convicts in the gang rape and murder case of her family members during 2002 Gujarat riots.

A bench of Justices Ajay Rastogi and Vikram Nath passed the order on December 13.

The matter, as per the Supreme Court Rules, was decided in judges chambers through circulation of papers.

The top court's order was communicated to Bilkis Bano's counsel Shobha Gupta.

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In its order, the bench said, "We have perused the review petition as well as the connected papers in support thereof and the judgments referred to by the review petitioner. In our opinion, there appears no error apparent on the face of record, which may call for review of the judgment dated May 12, 2022."

The bench also rejected the application for the open court hearing.

The petitioner relied upon four previous judgements in her plea, but the court said none of them is of any assistance to her review petition.

The apex court had in May ruled that the Gujarat government can consider the remission request as the offence took place in Gujarat.

Based on this ruling, the Gujarat government decided to release all 11 convicts in August.

Bilkis has filed a separate writ petition too challenging the Gujarat government's decision to release en masse all the convicts.

In the review petition, Bano said that Maharashtra’s remission policy should have been applied in the present case, instead of the 1992 remission policy of Gujarat since the trial had happened in Maharashtra.

The May 13, 2022 judgment had come on a petition filed by one of the convicts, Radheshyam Bhagwandas Shah seeking direction to Gujarat to consider his application for premature release under the 1992 policy, which was existing at the time of his conviction.

After release of 11 convicts, a batch of petitions, including by former CPI(M) MP Subhashini Ali, was filed in the top court, challenging the decision.

In an affidavit the Gujarat government had told the Supreme Court that it decided to release the 11 convicts in the Bilkis Bano case as they had completed 14 years and above in prison and their behaviour was found to be good and also the Centre had also conveyed its “concurrence/approval.”

The Mumbai Special Court, where trial was transferred, and the CBI, the investigating agency, had opposed the plea for remission in March.