New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Tuesday questioned the parole granted to the 11 men convicted in the gangrape of Bilkis Bano and the murder of seven members of her family during the 2002 Gujarat riots.
The apex court was hearing a bunch of petitions challenging the Gujarat government’s decision to grant the lifers early release on 15 August last year. Bano, who was pregnant when she was gangraped, has also challenged the remission.
A bench of Justices K.M. Joseph and B.V. Nagarathna said Tuesday: “The question is whether the government applied its mind and what material formed the basis of its decision to grant remission… Today, it is Bilkis but tomorrow it can be anyone. It may be you or me. If you do not show your reasons for grant of remission, then we will draw our own conclusions.”
The bench also said: “A pregnant woman was gang-raped and several people were killed. You cannot compare the victim’s case with standard Section 302 (murder) cases. Like you cannot compare apples with oranges, similarly massacre cannot be compared with single murder. Crimes are generally committed against society and the community. Unequals cannot be treated equally.”
The bench posted the case for final disposal on 2 May and asked all convicts who have not been served notices to file their replies.
The Centre and the Gujarat government also told the Supreme Court Tuesday that they may challenge its order seeking original files on the release of the 11 convicts.
The Gujarat government cited “privilege” and indicated it did not want to share the original files.
The apex court on 27 March – while asking to see the case files — had termed Bano’s gangrape and the murder of her family members as a “horrendous” act, and asked the Gujarat government whether uniform standards, as followed in other cases of murder, were applied while granting remission to the 11 convicts.
During the hearing Tuesday, the Bench went through records of the case and noted that three years of parole were granted to the convicts while they were serving the life sentence. It said more than 1,000 days of parole were granted to one, another got 1,500 days. The top court then asked the Gujarat government what policy it had been following.
Timeline of events that led to premature release of convicts
Given the life sentence in january 2008, one of the convicts appealed the Supreme Court for remission in April 2022, pleading that he had been in jail for over 15 years.
The top court in May ruled that the Gujarat government had the jurisdiction to consider the remission request as the crime took place in the state. The convicts were released on 15 August 2022 under the state’s 1992 remission law which considers two points – 14 years served and good behavior during incarceration.
After the release, public interest litigations (PILs) were immediately filed in the Supreme Court after videos went viral of these men getting a heroic welcome in their villages.
The PILs, challenging the premature release, were filed by CPI (M) leader Subhashini Ali, journalist Revati Laul, academician Roop Rekha Verma, and Trinamool Congress MP Mahua Moitra.
In a subsequent affidavit, Gujarat told the apex court that the decision was taken after consultation with the Centre, given the “good behavior” of the convicts and the completion of 14 years in prison. However, the state’s affidavit also revealed that top law officials had objected to the release considering the heinous nature of the offence.
Bano was 21 years old and five months pregnant when she was gangraped while fleeing the riots that took place after the Godhra train burning incident. Her three-year-old daughter was among the seven family members killed.