Bilkis bano ruling moves needle towards justice and dignity
I felt I had exhausted my reservoir of courage... until a million solidarities came my way. I can breathe again,” said Bilkis Yakub Rasool, better known as Bilkis Bano, after the Supreme Court on Monday quashed the remission granted by Gujarat in August 2022 to the 11 men convicted of gang-raping her in 2002. Terming the crime against Bilkis and her family—a pregnant 21-year-old Bilkis was raped and 14 of her family members murdered—as a “grotesque and diabolical crime driven by communal hatred”, the bench of justices B V Nagarathna and Ujjal Bhuyan pulled up the Gujarat government for acting “in tandem” with the prisoners to order their early release. The court ordered the 11 men to report back to prison in a fortnight.
The judgement is based on the technicality that the authority to decide on remission rests with the state of Maharashtra, where the trial was held and conviction decided, and not Gujarat, where the crime was committed. The Supreme Court had transferred the case to Maharashtra in August 2004 and a CBI special judge in Greater Mumbai had convicted and sentenced the 11 men to life imprisonment in January 2008. “The exercise of discretion by the state of Gujarat is nothing but an instance of usurpation of jurisdiction and an instance of abuse of discretion,” the ruling stated.
Apart from the matter of jurisdiction, the court weighed in on the decision to remit: “If a criminal is curable, he ought to be improved by education and other suitable arts, and then set free again as a better citizen and less of a burden to the State. This postulate lies at the heart of the policy of remission. There are also competing interests involved—the rights of the victim and the victim’s family to justice vis-a-vis a convict’s claim to a second chance by way of remission or reduction of his sentence for reformation. Over the years, this court initially attached greater weight to the former and has expressed scepticism over the latter, particularly if the offence in question is a heinous one.” On the nature of the crime, the court asked if sentences for “heinous crimes against women” should be remitted. In all, it is a remarkable decision that moves the needle away from retribution and towards dignity and justice.