NEW DELHI: 134 former bureaucrats under the aegis of the Constitutional Conduct Group on Saturday have written an open letter to the newly appointed CJI UU Lalit urging him to rectify the Gujarat Government's decision of releasing Bilkis Bano convicts.
“We write to you because we are deeply distressed by this decision of the Government of Gujarat and because we believe that it is only the Supreme Court which has the prime jurisdiction, and hence the responsibility, to rectify this horrendously wrong decision,” the open letter states.
Terming the decision as “horrendously wrong” bureaucrats have beseeched to direct sending the 11 convicts back to jail to serve out their life sentence.
“Like the overwhelming majority of people in our country, we are aghast at what happened in Gujarat a few days ago, on the 75th anniversary of India's Independence,” read the letter.
Former bureaucrats in the letter have also stated that they were “puzzled” about why SC in its May 13 order saw the matter as urgent and asked the State of Gujarat to decide the application of one of the convicts seeking early release within two months.
“We are puzzled about why the Supreme Court saw the matter as so urgent that a decision had to be taken within two months, as also by the Supreme Court ordering that the case should be examined as per Gujarat’s 1992 remission policy and not its current one,” the letter states.
It has further been stated in the letter that it was shocking that five of the ten members of the State Government’s Jail Advisory Committee that allowed remission plea belonged to the BJP.
“In a case like this where the victim, her family and witnesses braved death threats and threats of physical harm in fighting the case and shifted residence repeatedly for safety, it was obligatory for the Gujarat government to ascertain how such a release would impact their lives. This was not done even though the victim and her supporters have often stated that they were threatened with violence by the convicts (who were liberally granted parole while in jail) as well as by the families and friends of the convicts,” letter also states.
Interestingly, around 6,000 eminent citizens had also written a letter to the SC against the remission and had urged the SC to “undo the grave miscarriage of justice.”
The Supreme Court is already seized of the matter. In a PIL by activists Subhashini Ali, journalist Roopvati Lalu and professor Roop Rekha Verma, bench of ex CJI NV Ramana, Justices Ajay Rastogi and Vikram Nath on August 25 sought Centre and Gujarat Government’s response. Court also directed to implead 11 convicts and posted the matter to be heard after two weeks.