NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court on Tuesday agreed to consider the listing of the PIL challenging the remission granted to the convicts in the Bilkis Bano case.
The petition filed by Subhashini Ali, a member of the Communist Party of India (Marxist), journalist Revati Laul and Professor Roop Rekha Verma was mentioned by senior advocate Kapil Sibal and advocate Aparna Bhat.
"We're challenging the remission order granted to 11 persons who were convicted for killing 14 persons. The Supreme Court order is fine. We are challenging the principles on which the remission was granted. Pregnant women were raped and killed," Sibal said.
Bhat urged the bench to hear the plea wherein relief has also been sought for the production of the order granting remission, setting aside of such order, and directing immediate re-arrest of the convicts so released for Wednesday.
Considering the submission, CJI said, “We will see”.
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Gujarat on August 15 freed all the 11 convicts Jaswant Nai, Govind Nai, Shailesh Bhatt, Radhyesham Shah, Bipin Chandra Joshi, Kesarbhai Vohania, Pradeep Mordhiya, Bakabhai Vohania, Rajubhai Soni, Mitesh Bhatt and Ramesh Chandana who were sentenced to life imprisonment in the Bilkis Bano case.
It was argued in the petition 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 were found to have been involved in the commission of such gruesome acts.
"It would appear that the constitution of members of the competent authority of the Respondent No.1 also bore allegiance to a political party, and also was sitting MLAs. As such, it would appear that the competent authority was not an authority that was entirely independent, and one that could independently apply its mind to the facts at hand," the plea stated.
Bilkis Bano who was pregnant at the time was gang raped and her 3-year-old daughter was killed by a mob during the violence that broke across the state after Sabarmati Express was attacked in Godhra.