Gujarat IPS officer Ramanbhai S Bhagora, who was recently convicted of tampering with evidence in the 2002 Bilkis Bano gangrape case, failed to get his conviction stayed in the Supreme Court on Tuesday.

A Vacation Bench of Justices AK Sikri and Deepak Gupta found no urgency to hear the officer’s plea for stay of conviction as he had already undergone the sentence. But Bhagora’s lawyers submitted that the officer faces termination from service following the conviction order passed against him by the Bombay High Court on May 4, 2017.

The Court was unconvinced and listed the matter for hearing in the second week of July. Bhagora was one among the seven accused who were acquitted in the 2002 gangrape case by the special trial court on January 21, 2008. Besides, 11 other accused were sentenced to life term by the trial court. Dealing with appeals filed by the accused and the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), the Bombay High Court reversed the acquittal and held the seven accused (five policemen, two doctors) guilty under IPC Sections 218 (framing incorrect record to save an accused) and Section 201 (disappearance of evidence).

The Bilkis Bano case was part of the several cases reported in the aftermath of the Godhra riots that took place in Gujarat in 2002. On March 3, 2002, Bilkis Bano’s family was attacked by a mob at Randhikpur village near Ahmedabad while they were fleeing. Seven members of her family were killed. Bilkis, who was five months pregnant at the time, was gang raped. The trial in the case was shifted from Ahmedabad to Mumbai in August 2004 at the instance of the Supreme Court.