The Supreme Court on Tuesday agreed to consider a plea challenging the grant of remission by the Gujarat Government to 11 life convicts in the Bilkis Bano gangrape case.
The remission and the consequent release of 11 convicts on August 15 this year from Godhra sub-jail under the Gujarat Government’s remission policy has sparked a debate on the issue of such relief in heinous cases.
A bench comprising Chief Justice NV Ramana and Justices Hima Kohli and CT Ravikumar took note of the submissions of senior advocate Kapil Sibal and lawyer Aparna Bhat against the grant of remission to the convicts serving life imprisonment in the sensational post-Godhra riots case.
“We are only challenging the remission and not the Supreme Court order. The Supreme Court order is fine, My Lords. We are challenging the principles on the basis of which remission was granted,” Sibal said while seeking an urgent hearing of the plea.
The lawyers were seeking an urgent hearing of the plea filed by CPI(M) leader Subhashini Ali, journalist Revathy Laul and activist Roop Rekha Rani.
The plea referred to the sequence of events recorded in judicial files and said, “It is submitted that on such facts, no right thinking authority applying any test under any extant policy would consider it fit to grant remission to persons who are found to have been involved in the commission of such gruesome acts.”
TMC MP Mahua Moitra too filed a separate petition in the SC against the release of the convicts, alleging the remission “completely fails to bolster either social or human justice and does not constitute a valid exercise of the guided discretionary power of the State.