New Delhi, Jan 8: The Gujarat government’s decision to provide remission to 11 prisoners in the case of gangraping Bilkis Bano and killing seven of her family members during the 2002 state riots was overturned by the Supreme Court on Monday. The court claimed that the decisions were “stereotypical” and made without consideration for the facts. The prisoners were given a two-week deadline by a bench of Justices B V Nagarathna and Ujjal Bhuyan to turn themselves in to the jail administration. The bench stated that the Gujarati government was not the right government to issue the remission order, holding the PIL contesting the remission to be maintainable.The supreme court made it clear that the State has the authority to choose whether to grant a convict’s remission plea once an offender is prosecuted and sentenced. Maharashtra conducted the trials for the guilty. We didn’t have to discuss the other matters. However, we have for the sake of completion. The Gujarat administration has violated the rule of law by usurping and abusing its authority that was not granted to it. The bench declared that the remission orders should be annulled on that basis as well. The ruling took more than a hundred pages to complete. The top court further declared as “nullity” a ruling from a different bench dated May 13, 2022, which requested that the Gujarat government take into account convicts’ pleas for remission because the pleas were obtained by “playing fraud on the court” and by omitting important information. It said that this was a textbook instance of the court’s order being utilised to subvert the rule of law by giving remission. The supreme court declared that the takeover of power and the misuse of the legal system on May 13, 2022, had violated the rule of law. The bench declared, “We strike down the remission orders on the ground of Gujarat government’s usurpation of power.”On October 12 of last year, following an 11-day hearing on the petitions, including Bano’s, the supreme court had reserved its decision. The top court reserved its decision, but it did order the Centre and the Gujarat government to provide the original documentation pertaining to the 11 convicts’ sentence remission by October 16. During its September 2018 hearing, the Supreme Court questioned whether prisoners had a basic right to request a reduction in their sentence. The supreme court had noted during the previous arguments that state governments ought to give all prisoners the chance to reform and reintegrate into society and that they shouldn’t be allowed to be selective in the remission of sentences.In addition to Bano’s petition challenging the remission that the Gujarat government had granted them, a number of other PILs have also contested the relief, including one from CPI(M) leader Subhashini Ali, independent journalist Revati Laul, and former vice-chancellor of Lucknow University Roop Rekha Verma. Mahua Moitra, the leader of the TMC, has also filed a PIL opposing the remission and their early release. When Bilkis Bano, then twenty-one, was raped while escaping the horror of the communal riots that erupted following the Godhra train-burning event, she was five months pregnant. Her daughter, age three, was one of the seven family members who perished in the riots. August 15, 2022, saw the release of all 11 convicted individuals when the Gujarati government awarded them remission.
