Bilkis Bano case: Supreme Court seeks entire record of proceedings from Gujarat government

The Supreme Court on Friday asked the Gujarat government to file the entire record of the proceedings in the Bilkis Bano case including the remission order given to the 11 convicts who had gangraped Bano and murdered her family members during the 2002 Godhra riotsA bench of Justices Ajay Rastogi and BV Nagarathna granted two weeks to the Gujarat government to produce all relevant records in the caseThe bench also issued notice to the Gujarat government and convicts on a plea filed by TMC MP Mahua Moitra against the release of the convictsEarlier the apex court had issued notice to the Gujarat government on the plea filed by Communist Party of India Marxist member Subhashini Ali journalist Revati Laul and social activist and professor Roop Rekha Verma It asked the petitioner to impede convicts in the petitionThe plea has sought setting aside of order granting remission to 11 convicts and directing their immediate rearrestIt is submitted that it would appear that the constitution of members of the competent authority of the Gujarat government also bore allegiance to a political party and sitting MLAs As such it would appear that the competent authority was not an authority that was entirely independent and one that could independently apply its mind to the facts at hand the plea statedThe plea filed by the three women said they had challenged the order of competent authority of the government of Gujarat by way of which 11 persons who were accused in a set of heinous offences committed in Gujarat were allowed to walk free on August 15 2022 pursuant to remission being extended to themAlso Read SC grants bail to journalist Siddique KappanThe 11 persons were sentenced to life imprisonment for commission of the offences of among other things gangrape and murder of multiple people during the largescale communal riots in Gujarat in 2002 on January 18 2008 passed by the Sessions Court in Greater Mumbai and the conviction was upheld by way of Judgment dated May 4 2017 passed by High Court of Mumbai the petition statedThe petition said the case which led to the conviction of the 11 convicts was investigated by the CBI accordingly the grant of remission solely by the Gujarat government without any consultation with the Central government is impermissible in terms of the mandate of Section 435 of the Code of Criminal Procedure 1973The remission in this heinous case would be entirely against public interest and would shock the collective public conscience as also be entirely against the interests of the victim whose family has publicly made statements worrying for her safety the plea statedIt is submitted that on such facts facts of the case no right thinking authority applying any test under any extant policy would consider it fit to grant remission to persons who are found to have been involved in the commission of such gruesome acts said the pleaThe Gujarat government released the 11 convicts who were sentenced to life imprisonment on August 15 All the 11 lifeterm convicts in the case were released as per the remission policy prevalent in Gujarat at the time of their conviction in 2008In March 2002 during the postGodhra riots Bano was allegedly gangraped and left to die with 14 members of her family including her threeyearold daughter She was five months pregnant when rioters attacked her family in VadodaraThis story has been sourced from a third party syndicated feed agencies Midday accepts no responsibility or liability for its dependability trustworthiness reliability and data of the text Midday managementmiddaycom reserves the sole right to alter delete or remove without notice the content in its absolute discretion for any reason whatsoever