The Supreme Court on Friday declined to extend the deadline of surrender by 11 convicts of the Bilkis Bano gangrape case. Earlier, a series of appeals was filed by 10 of the convicts, seeking more time to surrender, citing reasons such as family responsibilities, care for aged parents, harvesting of winter crops and health conditions.
While dismissing the plea, the top court said reasons cited in the application do not bar them from complying with the January 8 order to surrender within two weeks.
In their petition, nine convicts sought an extension of six more weeks, whereas one asked for an additional time of four weeks.
“As the winter crops grown by the applicant are ready for harvesting and other processes, the applicant needs five to six weeks for such harvesting and other processes to be completed,” one of the convicts, Mithilesh Bhatt, said in his application.
On January 8, the apex court scrapped the Gujarat government’s remission of the premature release of all 11 people convicted for raping Bilkis Bano and murdering her family members during the 2002 Gujarat communal riots. The court said that the Gujarat government didn’t have jurisdiction over deciding the remission of a sentence awarded in Maharashtra. It said the Gujarat government had usurped the power of the Maharashtra government by not filing the review petition against the May 2022 judgment.
“We need not have gone into the other issues. But for the sake of completion, we have. The rule of law is breached because the Gujarat government usurped power not vested in it and abused its power. On that basis, the remission orders also deserve to be quashed. We scrapped the remission orders on the ground of usurpation of power by the Gujarat government,” the bench said.
