Bilkis Bano case: SC judge recuses from hearing plea against release of convicts

Justice Bela M Trivedi Supreme Court judge on Tuesday recused herself from hearing the plea filed by Bilkis Bano challenging the premature release of 11 convicts who had gangraped her and murdered her family members during the 2002 Godhra riotsA bench of Justices Ajay Rastogi and Bela M Trivedi said the matter be posted before another benchBesides filing a petition against the permature release of convicts Bano has also filed a review petition seeking its earlier order by which it had asked the Gujarat government to consider the plea for the remission of one of the convictsThe review petition was also listed for hearing today before Justice Rastogi in his camberAs per procedures review pleas against top court judgements are decided in chambers by circulation by the judges who were part of the judgement under reviewShe has filed a review plea against the May order of the Supreme Court which allowed the Gujarat government to apply the 1992 remission RulesBilkis said that even being the victim of the crime she had no clue about any such process of remission or premature release initiatedAlso Read Lakhimpur violence SC asks for time needed for trial of Ashish MishraGujarats remission order is a mechanical order of remission by completely ignoring the law requirement as consistently laid down the plea saidEarlier some PILs were filed seeking directions to revoke the remission granted to 11 convictsThe pleas were filed by the National Federation of Indian Women whose General Secretary is Annie Raja Member of the Communist Party of India Marxist Subhashini Ali journalist Revati Laul social activist and professor Roop Rekha Verma and TMC MP Mahua MoitraGujarat government in its affidavit had defended remission granted to convicts saying they completed 14 years of sentence in prison and their behaviour was found to be goodThe State government said it has considered the cases of all 11 convicts as per the policy of 1992 and remission was granted on August 10 2022 and the Central government also approved the oremature release of convictsIt is pertinent to note that the remission was not granted under the circular governing grant of remission to prisoners as part of the celebration of Azadi Ka Amrit Mahotsav it has saidThe 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 goodThe government had also questioned the locus standi of petitioners who filed the PIL challenging the decision saying they were outsiders to the caseThe pleas said they have 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 themThe 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 pleas statedThe Gujarat government had 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 Vadodara This 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