The Bombay High Court on Thursday upheld the life sentence of 11 convicts in the Bilkis Bano gangrape case, even as it rejected the CBI’s plea seeking the enhancement of life sentence to capital punishment for three convicts and set aside the acquittal of seven other accused in the case.
Upholding the 2008 order of a trial court handing out life sentence to 11 accused in the Bilkis Bano gang rape case, a HC division bench of Justice Vijaya Tahilramani and Justice Mridula Bhatkar ruled; “We hereby confirm the conviction and sentence imposed on accused nos. 1, 2 and 4 to 12 as imposed by the trial Court. All the Appeals filed by accused nos. 1, 2 and 4 to 12 against their conviction and sentences are dismissed, hence, they would have to undergo the conviction and sentence as imposed by the trial Court”.
The 11 convicts, whose life sentences awarded by the trial court on January 21, 2008, are: Jaswantbhai Nai, Govindbhai Nai, Shailesh Bhatt, Radhyesham Bhagwan Das Shah, Bipin Chandra Joshi, Kesarbhai Vohania, Pradeep Mordhiya, Bakabhai Vohania, Rajubhai Soni, Mitesh Bhatt and Ramesh Chandana.
However, in what came as a setback for the CBI, the HC Bench rejected its plea that life sentence awarded to Jaswantbhai Nai, Govindbhai Nai and Shailesh Bhatt by the trial court be enhanced to capital punishment.
Making a strong case for death sentence to three of the convicts, CBI’s counsel Hiten Venegaonkar had argued before the high court in October 2016 that the case was that of “mass murder” as 14 members of a family, including babies who were a few days old.
The CBI counsel had argued before the high court that the “depraved act” of gang raping a pregnant woman and multiple murders, including an infant and a tiny tot, amounted to the rarest of rare case, and pleaded for death sentence for three of the convicts in the case
The CBI had also told the court that the three prime convicts had gang-raped the (then) 19-year old five-month pregnant Bilkis Bano. Among other things, the CBI told the court that Bhatt also snatched Bilkis Bano's three-year-old daughter from her and pounded the girl’s head with a stone, resulting in instant death.
Welcoming the high court’s verdict, Bilkis Bano said in a statement issued in Gujarat: "I am grateful that this verdict delivered by the honorable Judges, has, yet again, vindicated my truth, and upheld my faith in the judiciary. My rights, as a human being, as a citizen, woman, and mother were violated in the most brutal manner, but I have trusted in the democratic institutions of our country. Now, my family and I feel we can begin to lead our lives again, free of fear'”.
It may be recalled that the family of Bilkis Yakub Rasool alias Bilkis Bano was attacked by a mob at Randhikpur village near Ahemadabad on March 3, 2002. In the incident that took place after the Godhra riots, eight members of the Bilkis Bano’s family were killed, including four women and four children, while six went missing. Bilkis was pregnant at that time. The incident had happened while the family was on run after the Godhra riots.
While setting aside the acquittal of seven accused, the HC Bench passed severe strictures against the police officers who investigated the case and doctors who did the post-mortem on the bodies of the victims in the case.
The HC Bench ruled that for the offences committed under section 201 of IPC (causing disappearance of evidence of offence or giving false information to screen offender), the accused numbers 13, 14, 15, 16, 18, 19 and 20, whose acquittal it set aside, were awarded sentence to the period of imprisonment undergone by them and fine of Rs 5,000 and simple imprisonment for two months if they failed to pay up the fine.
For the offence under Section 218 of IPC ( Public servant framing incorrect record or writing with intent to save person from punishment or property from forfeiture, each ofthese accused is sentenced to fine of Rs 15,000 or simple imprisonment. for two months, the HC bench ruled, while granting eight weeks’ time to the accused to deposit the fine.
In strictures passed against police officers who investigated the case, the HC bench observed: “... conspicuously, the police personnel appeared as witnesses for the defence and tried to destroy the case of the prosecution at its root. However their attempts were an abortive attempt,” the judges observed, while disapproving the role played police officials in the case.
“The circumstances and the documentary evidence the absence of material facts in the FIR; not mentioning the true facts in the yadi, not sending the prosecutrix immediately for medical examination, but sending her on the next day, so also not taking the prosecutrix to spot; not taking the prosecutrix to identify the dead bodies; not protecting the dead bodies; disappearance of body of Saleha, etc. form concrete evidence to lead us to the only inference that the police working at limkheda police station prepared incorrect record as they wanted to protect the interest of persons of their department i.e., accused Nos.13 to 18 as well as persons from Randikpur,” the Judges noted.
“Accused Nos.19 and 20 are the medical officers. Prima facie, one may feel that they are not concerned with the investigation and therefore, they are innocent. However, in our considered opinion and after close scrutiny of the evidence, we could read between the lines which show that the medical officers have completely failed to perform the postmortem of all the bodies as is expected under the law,” the HC Bench observed.
“The medical officer, who is entrusted to perform the post mortem of the dead bodies, is duty bound to give all details of the injuries and the cause of death. In cases where rape is committed, then, the medical officer is required to examine the private parts of the victim carefully so also the injury marks on her body and private part carefully keeping in view history of rape and make an objective note of the observations,” the judges noted.
“It is also a must for the medical officer in the case of rape to collect vaginal swab and smear or any other liquid or dried liquid which could have been a remnant of seminal discharge and thus, give a correct direction to the investigation. The finding may be negative or positive, however, such examination is required to be done in the case of rape,” the judges said.
“In the present case, in the inquest panchanama, the doctors have only mentioned injury to private part of one deceased. On perusal of the photographs, one can easily make out that the females were sexually abused when they were put to death. It was not one incident of rape but as per the case of prosecution, nearly 3 to 4 females were raped. Four bodies of females were found. The incident has taken place in the afternoon of 3.3.2002 and the Doctors visited the spot two days thereafter i.e., on 5.3.2002,” the HC bench noted.
“Thus, we are convinced that the defence cannot be taken by the medical officers that they were directed by the police to conduct postmortem in such a manner. The medical officers are independent persons; they have to carry out post mortem independently as they are experts and write true and correct facts in respect of injuries and the cause of death,” the Judges observed.