BILKIS BANO CASE: INDIA’S TOP COURT TO SET UP SPECIAL BENCH TO HEAR PLEAS AGAINST RELEASE OF CONVICTS

Wed 22 March 2023:

New Delhi: Chief Justice D.Y. Chandrachud has said that a special bench will be constituted by the Supreme Court to hear the pleas challenging the premature release of 11 convicts by the Gujarat government in the Bilkis Bano gang rape case.

“I will have a bench constituted. Will look at it this evening,” CJI Chandrachud said, according to Indian Express. The matter came up before a three-judge bench of CJI Chandrachud, Justice P.S. Narsimha, and Justice J.B. Pardiwala on Wednesday, March 22.

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Bano’s counsel, Shobha Gupta, had told the court that the matter had been mentioned before the apex court four times earlier but did not come up for hearing. In fact, it was supposed to come up before the top court on January 24, but it wasn’t taken up as the judges expected to hear the matter was caught up in another hearing on a constitutional matter on the same day. Even last month, CJI Chandrachud had promised that a special bench would hear Bano’s case.

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In May 2022, a bench led by Justice Ajay Rastogi had allowed the Gujarat government to take a call on the remission requests made by the convicts, stating that the offence took place in Gujarat. Following this, on August 15, 2022, the convicts were released prematurely by the Gujarat government, leading to a huge backlash against the decision. Bano had moved Supreme Court in December 2022 seeking a review of the Gujarat government’s decision, which is now under consideration.

Bilkis was gang-raped and her three-year-old daughter was among 14 people killed by a mob on March 3, 2002, in Limkheda taluka of Dahod district during the riots.

-The Wire

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