New Delhi: The Gujarat government has defended its decision to not file a review petition against the Supreme Court’s May 2022 judgment that declared it to be the appropriate state for granting remission to the Bilkis Bano case convicts.
In a review petition filed before the apex court against the 8 January judgment that quashed the Gujarat government’s remission order in favour of the 11 convicts, the state said filing a review petition was unnecessary as Bano herself had challenged the May 2022 verdict.
Gujarat’s review plea comes in response to scathing remarks made against it by the Supreme Court in its 8 January ruling that cancelled the remission granted to the 11 convicts. The review has requested the top court to recall the comments such as “fraud and usurpation of power”, saying they were “not only highly unwarranted and against the record of the case, but has caused serious prejudice to the State”.
The 2022 judgment was delivered on one of the convicts’ plea to direct the Gujarat government to decide his remission plea as per the old remission policy that allowed the state to grant pardon to rape convicts too. Under the new policy, such offenders have been kept out.
Bano’s review petition was, however, dismissed on 13 December 2022 by a speaking order. This showed that there was no “fraud” committed on the court by Gujarat or “usurpation of power”, the state’s review petition has said.
In the 8 January order, the SC had faulted Gujarat for not seeking a review of the May 2022 judgment. It cancelled the remission orders on the ground that Gujarat lacked jurisdiction to decide on the remission applications of the convicts since the latter were convicted and sentenced to life by a special court in Maharashtra. The ruling declared Maharashtra to be the appropriate authority under the law to consider the remission plea in accordance with its premature release policy for convicts.
The January judgment included observations against Gujarat for not questioning the May 2022 SC decision, despite it going against the stand it took during the hearing of the case. This, the judgment stated, showed the state was in tandem with the convicts in the case.
The May 2022 verdict resulted in the premature release of all 11 convicts in the Bano rape-cum-murder case in August 2022, which led to an outrage and filing of petitions against it in the top court. Bano too filed a case in the top court, asking for the convicts’ release to be set aside.
Gujarat’s review petition said the court has erred in recording observations, including “abuse of discretion” in its January judgment, given that the state was only complying with the order of a co-ordinate bench of the top court, which directed it to take a call on the remission application of one of the convicts under the 1992 remission policy.
As for the non-filing of a review petition, Gujarat said no “adverse inference” can be drawn out of it because records reveal that it has “consistently submitted before this court as well as the Gujarat HC (which held Maharashtra to be the appropriate authority for hearing premature release applications of the convicts) that it was not empowered to take note of remission requests under the Criminal Procedure Code.
(Edited by Gitanjali Das)
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