The Supreme Court denied the convicts’ requests on Friday to extend their deadline for turning themselves in to jail officials in the Bilkis Bano case. Judges BV Nagarathna and Ujjal Bhuyan’s bench dismissed the applications, ruling that the justifications given by the applicants to request a postponement of surrender and return to custody were without merit.
“The reasons cited by applicants to seek postponement of surrender and report back to jail have no merit in as much as those reasons in no way prevent them from complying with our directions. Hence, the miscellaneous applications are dismissed. Pending applications, if any, also stand disposed,” said the bench.
The time for convicts to surrender will expire on January 21.
With reasons including health concerns, taking care of elderly parents, the approaching harvest of crops, and other matters, the 11 prisoners in the Bilkis Bano case have petitioned the supreme court for an extension of time to turn themselves in before the jail authorities. The Gujarat government pardoned the prisoners involved in the 2002 Godhra riots, which resulted in the gangrape of Bilkis Bano and the murder of her family members. Despite receiving a life sentence, they were freed in August 2022 after serving 14 years.
On January 8, the Supreme Court struck down the Gujarat government’s order granting remission to 11 convicts.
It had quashed the Gujarat government’s remission order, by which convicts were released pre-maturely, and asked them to surrender before jail authorities within two weeks.
The bench had held that the Gujarat government was not competent to pass the remission orders but the Maharashtra government.