Bilkis Bano Case: Supreme Court Quashes Gujarat Government's Decision To Grant Remission To 11 Convicts

The Supreme Court on Monday (8 January) quashed the decision of the Gujarat government to grant remission to 11 convicts involved in the Bilkis Bano gangrape case and the killing of seven of her family members during the 2002 Gujarat riots.

“Gujarat government had no jurisdiction to entertain the application for remission or pass the orders as it was not the appropriate government," the Apex Court noted, Indian Express reported.

"On competence of Gujarat government to pass remission orders, it is apparent that appropriate government had to take permission of the court before passing remission orders. This means that place of occurrence or place of imprisonment of convicts are not relevant for remission. The definition of appropriate government is otherwise. The intention of the government is that the State under whom the convict was tried and sentenced was the appropriate government. This places emphasis on the place of trial and rather than where the crime took place," the Court said.

The bench of Justices B V Nagarathna and Ujjal Bhuyan also observed that its May 2022 order directing Gujarat government to decide the remission was secured by suppressing facts and fraud played on court.

The Court said that the May 2022 judgment was obtained by fraud and therefore not good in law.

“The SC order of May 13, 2022 directing Gujarat govt to decide the remission as per 1992 policy being a nullify, all the proceedings in pursuance of the order stands vitiated,” the Court pronounced.

On 15 August 2023, the Gujarat government released the 11 individuals convicted in the Bilkis Bano case, in accordance with its 1992 policy on remission and premature release.

This came after one of the convicts, Radheshyam Shah, who was sentenced to life imprisonment by a CBI court in Mumbai in 2008, approached the Supreme Court after completing 15 years and four months in jail.

In the wake of the state government's decision, Bano appealed to the Supreme Court, expressing her distress about the early release of the convicts, stating it had "shaken the conscience of the society”.