Ashish Ranjan
The Supreme Court of India will hear a batch of petitions challenging the parole of eleven convicts in the Bilkis Bano gangrape case on March 27.The court constituted a new panel consisting of Justices KM Joseph and BV Nagarathna to hear Bano’s writ petition and the pleas of several political and civil rights activists involved in the case.
This decision was made after the Chief Justice of India, DY Chandrachud, on March 22 ordered an urgent listing and consented to form a new bench to hear the petitions.Bano was five months pregnant and 21 years old when she was gang-raped in 2002 while fleeing the violence that broke out in Gujarat following the burning of the Godhra train. Her three-year-old daughter was among the seven members of her family who perished.
On January 4, this year, a bench consisting of Justices Ajay Rastogi and Bela M. Trivedi heard Bano’s petition, but then recused themselves without providing a reason.Bano petitioned the apex court in November, shortly after all eleven convicts were granted clemency by the Gujarat government and released on August 15 of last year, contesting their “premature” release and claiming it “shook the conscience of society.”
According to a PTI report, Bano stated in her pending writ petition that the state government had issued a “mechanical order” in complete disregard of the Supreme Court’s legal requirements. “The mass premature release of convicts in the much-discussed Bilkis Bano case has shaken the social conscience and sparked a number of protests across the country,” she said.
The petition stated, “The present writ petition challenges the state/central government’s decision to grant all 11 convicts clemency and release them prematurely for one of the most heinous crimes of extreme inhuman violence and brutality.””When the country was celebrating its 76th Independence Day, all of the prisoners were released early, garlanded, and congratulated in full public view, and sweets were distributed,” it continued.
Subhashini Ali, Revati Laul, an independent journalist, Roop Rekha Verma, the former Vice-Chancellor of Lucknow University, and Mahua Moitra, an MP for the TMC, also filed PILs opposing the release of the convicts.
Also Read | Sonia, Priyanka Gandhi Attend Key Meet After Rahul Gandhi Disqualification
In January 2008, a special CBI court in Mumbai sentenced the convicted of gang-raping Bano and murdering seven members of her family to life in prison. Both the Bombay High Court and the Supreme Court subsequently upheld their conviction.
