The Supreme Court announced that it would take into account an early listing of a petition from the victim (Bilkis Bano) seeking review of its earlier verdict asking the Gujarat government to take into account the petition for the release of 11 defendants in the gang rape case involving Bilkis Bano.
A bench of Chief Justice DY Chandrachud, and Justices PS Narasimha and Dipankar Datta Sai said, “It will come up by circulation. I will have it posted early. There is a date, I will check.”
The review plea has not yet been listed, and a tentative date of December 5 has been indicated, according to counsel Shobha Gupta, who informed the bench of this.
According to protocol, review petitions against rulings by the highest courts are decided in chambers by the judges who participated in the ruling under review.
She filed a review petition in opposition to the Supreme Court’s decision from May allowing the Gujarat government to implement the 1992 remission Rules.
In addition to submitting a review petition, Bano also pleaded against the early release of 11 criminal defendants who had gang-raped and killed Bano’s family members during the 2002 Godhra riots.
On December 13, the matter is scheduled to be heard by a bench comprising Justices Ajay Rastogi and Bela Trivedi.
Bano claimed that despite being the victim of the crime, she was unaware of any early release or remission process that had been started.
According to the argument, Gujarat’s remission order utterly disregards the requirements of the law as they have been constantly stated.
Prior to this, some PILs had been submitted asking for instructions to withdraw the remission given to 11 inmates.
The National Federation of Indian Women, whose general secretary is Annie Raja, the Communist Party of India (Marxist), represented by Subhashini Ali, the journalist Revati Laul, the professor and social activist Roop Rekha Verma, and the TMC MP Mahua Moitra, filed the arguments.
In their affidavit, the Gujarat government supported the remission of fines given to convicts by noting that they had served a total of 14 years in prison and that their “behaviour was found to be good.”
The State government claimed that it had taken into account the cases of all 11 convicts in accordance with the 1992 policy, and that remission had been granted on August 10, 2022. The Central government had also given its approval for the convicts’ early release.
It is important to remember that the remission was not given in accordance with the circular governing the grant of remission to inmates in honour of “Azadi Ka Amrit Mahotsav,” as it has been stated.
The affidavit has stated, “State government considered all the opinions and decided to release 11 prisoners since they have completed 14 years and above in prisons and their behaviour was found to be good.”
The petitioners who filed the PIL contesting the ruling had their locus standi called into question by the government, which claimed they were unrelated to the case.
The arguments stated that they were contesting the order of the Gujarati government’s competent authority, which permitted 11 people who had been charged with a series of terrible crimes to be released on August 15, 2022 as a result of remission being granted to them.
Remission in this horrible instance would go completely against the public interest, shock the public conscience, as well as the victim’s interests (her family has made public declarations expressing concern for her safety), petitions noted.