NEW DELHI: Noting that Bilkis Bano, who was gang-raped by a mob during the Godhra riots in Gujarat when she was 20 and pregnant, has approached the court herself challenging the remission to 11 convicts, the Supreme Court on Wednessday said locus standi objections by the Gujarat government and a convict would not arise anymore. The court said it would take up her plea as a lead matter.
“After the victim’s plea comes, the issue of locus goes. We’ll take that matter (Bilkis’s matter) as lead matter. Come on merits. In these cases no technicality has to follow,” Justice Rastogi remarked while posting the pleas for February.
Apart from Bilkis, several third party petitioners, including CPI(M) leader Subhashini Ali and Trinamool’s Mahua Moitra, filed petitions challenging the remission of sentence given to the 11 convicts. Justice Rastogi, while dealing with the activists pleas, was initially inclined to take Bilkis’ plea along with a batch of other petitions, but on Justice Bela M Trivedi’s recusal, he asked Bilkis’ counsel to seek tagging her plea when the matter comes up before a different combination of judges.
“Since my sister wants to recuse we can’t pass an order of tagging. Whenever there is different combination, request us and we’ll tag it. We’ll tag it later,” Justice Rastogi said. Justice Trivedi had last month, too, recused in a different Bilkis plea challenging the SC’s direction to the Gujarat HC to hear remission petitions of the convicts.