The Gujarat government on Tuesday moved the Supreme Court and filed a review petition seeking withdrawal of certain observations against the government for its conduct regarding the premature release of the 11 convicts in the Bilkis Bano case.
The State said the negative remarks against the government in the Supreme Court verdict have caused great damage to the state government.
The Gujarat government has tried to delete negative comments against the state.
It further submitted that the state government had only acted on the mandamus issued by the Supreme Court in its May 2022 judgment.
The Gujarat government acted on the Supreme Court’s May 2022 judgment directing it to consider the remission application of one of the convicts, the review plea said.
The State submitted that it cannot be said to have “usurped” the jurisdiction of the State of Maharashtra when it acted in accordance with a direction of the Supreme Court.
On January 8, the Supreme Court quashed the Gujarat government’s order granting remission to 11 convicts who raped Bilkis Bano and murdered her relatives during the 2002 Godhra riots.
The top court had held that the Gujarat government had no jurisdiction to issue the remission orders, but the Maharashtra government. It had said that the competent government to decide on remission was the state (in this case, Maharashtra) within whose territorial limits the accused are convicted and not where the crime was committed or the accused are imprisoned.
It held that the May 13, 2022 judgment, wherein another bench of the apex court had directed the Gujarat government to consider remission of a convict in accordance with the 1992 policy, was obtained by “frauding” the court and by suppressing material facts.
The Gujarat government has usurped the powers of the Maharashtra government which acted in support of the May 13, 2022 judgment, which in our opinion is a “nullity”, the apex court had said.
While filing the review plea, the Gujarat government has taken exception to the apex court’s observation that the State of Gujarat acted in concert and was complicit with the convict.
“The Supreme Court’s observation holding Gujarat guilty of ‘usurpation of power’ and ‘abuse of discretion’ for complying with the Supreme Court’s order, whereby another coordinating bench of this Court held the State of Gujarat as the ‘appropriate government’ on under Section 432(7) of the CrPC, and issued a mandamus to the State of Gujarat to decide the waiver. The application of a convict in accordance with the remission policy of 1992 existing at the time of conviction in the State of Gujarat is an error that is apparent primarily on the face of it,” the review plea of the Government of Gujarat said.
The Gujarat government had released the 11 convicts, who were sentenced to life imprisonment, on August 15, 2022. All 11 life convicts in the case were released under the remission policy in force in Gujarat at the time of their conviction in 2008. .
In March 2002, during the post-Godhra riots, Bano was allegedly gang-raped and left to die with fourteen members of her family, including her three-year-old daughter. She was five months pregnant when rioters attacked her family in Vadodara.
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First print: February 14, 2024 | 12:20 pm IST