On Monday, the Supreme Court invalidated the Gujarat government’s decision to grant remission to 11 convicts involved in the gangrape of Bilkis Bano and the murder of seven of her family members during the 2002 riots in the state. The two-judge bench, led by Justice B V Nagarathna and also comprising Justice Ujjal Bhuyan, directed all 11 convicts to surrender before jail authorities within two weeks. Emphasizing the importance of the rule of law, the court stated that if the convicts wished to seek remission in accordance with the law, they must be in jail. The judgment held that the State of Gujarat lacked the authority to pass the remission orders, and Bilkis Bano’s petition challenging the remission was deemed maintainable.
The Supreme Court, in its verdict, refused to address the question of the maintainability of Public Interest Litigations (PILs), citing that Bilkis Bano’s petition was already considered maintainable. Additionally, the court declared the Gujarat government’s remission order, allowed in a previous judgment on May 13, 2022, for one of the convicts, as a nullity. It clarified that the state where an offender is tried and sentenced is competent to decide on remission pleas, asserting that the Gujarat government’s remission order lacked competence and must be quashed.
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