Gujarat Govt faces severe blow in Bilkis Bano case, SC cancels release of convicts 

NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court pronounced the verdict on the pleas filed by many including Bilkis Bano, the victim, who questioned the acquittal of 11 convicts sentenced to life imprisonment in the murder and rape cases related to the Gujarat riots. 'Sentencing is for the accused to change and reform. The rights of the woman victim should also be executed. The Gujarat government has no right to release the accused. As the trial took place in Maharashtra, the government of that place had the right,’ said the Supreme Court. The court also cancelled the remission of sentence of the eleven accused. They should serve the prison sentence again.

One of the accused approached the Supreme Court for commutation of the sentence by concealing the facts. The Supreme Court had not said that it should consider commutation of all the accused. The instruction was given in the case of only one person. The Supreme Court has now quashed the earlier order to consider the plea of an accused for commutation of sentence.

A bench comprising justices B V Nagarathna and Ujjal Bhuyan completed the hearing on October 12 and adjourned to deliver the verdict. As the Lok Sabha elections are nearing, it was crucial for the BJP and the central government.

Bilkis Bano and her family were subjected to brutal harassment during the 2002 Gujarat riots. Bilkis, who was five months pregnant, was gang-raped. The assailants stoned the first child to death and gangraped the mother. 14 members of the family were killed.

The Gujarat government released the life prisoners after serving 14 years in prison and considering good behavior. CPM leader Subhashini Ali, former Trinamool MP Mahua Moitra and former IPS officer Meeran Chadha Borwankar filed public interest petitions in the Supreme Court against this. Later Bilkis Banu also filed a plea. Bilkis argued that the release of inmates who had committed heinous crimes against her and her family members was traumatizing.

Jaswant Nai, Govind Nai, Shailesh Bhatt, Radyesham Shah, Bipin Chandra Joshi, Kesarbhai Vohania, Pradeep Mordhia, Bakabhai Vohania, Rajubhai Soni, Mitesh Bhatt and Ramesh Chandana are the 11 accused who were acquitted. On August 15 in 2022, having completed 15 years in prison, they were released due to their age and behavior during their imprisonment.

Shobha Gupta, lawyer of Bilkis, demanded in the Supreme Court that the criminals in the case do not deserve any kind of mercy and should be sent back to jail. The brutality of the accused was very primitive. Yet the Gujarat government took a soft stance against the criminals. They took a stand in favour of them. The accused were out on parole during most of the sentence period. The lawyer informed these things during the hearing of the pleas filed against the action of the Gujarat government which acquitted the 11 criminals in the case.

However, Siddharth Luthra, the lawyer of the accused, raised a counter argument against this. He said the compensation awarded by the court to Bilkis Bano was the highest in any gang-rape case and the state government had the power to commute the punishment of the culprits. Meantime, the accused in the Bilkis Bano murder case shared the stage with a BJP MP and MLA at a program organized by the Gujarat government, which created a lot of controversy.

One of the 11 who gang-raped Bilkis Bano, Shailesh Chimanlal Bhatt, attended the event along with BJP MLA and MP. The event was held on March 25, 2023 at Karmadi village of Dahod district. Shailesh shared the stage with Dahod MP Jaswant Sin Bhabhor and his brother Limkheda MLA Sailesh Bhabhor. The picture from here is circulating on social media. In the footage, Shailesh Chimanlal Bhatt is seen posing for photos with the leaders and participating in the pooja at the event.