Convict in Bilkis Bano case moves SC saying verdict cancelling his remission violates judicial propriety
NEW DELHI: Radheshyam Bhagwandas Shah, one of the convicts in the Bilkis Bano gangrape case, has knocked the doors of the Supreme Court claiming that the January 8 verdict cancelling his remission and the re-imprisonment of all eleven convicts was judicially improper, the petition copy accessed by TNIE revealed.
Shah's plea, filed before the top court, said that since the two-judge bench led by Justice BV Nagarathna and Justice Ujjal Bhuyan disagreed with another two-judge bench (led by Justice Rastogi), the matter ought to have been referred to a larger bench.
Shah had filed the plea before the top court through his lawyer Rishi Malhotra. He stated that it was incorrect in law for the two-judge bench led by Justice Nagarathna to overrule a judgment rendered by another two judge-bench of the Supreme Court, namely Justices Ajay Rastogi and Vikram Nath.
Malhotra, while talking to TNIE, said he had urged the apex court to reconsider the convict's plea for premature release. He has also sought bail for Shah until the Supreme Court can clarify which of the two-judge bench judgments would prevail.
"The January 8 judgement pronounced by Justices Nagarathna and Bhuyan was not only a case of judicial impropriety but creates uncertainty and chaos as to which precedence of law has to be applied in future," Shah's petition filed before the top court said.
The apex court, in its landmark verdict on January 8, had quashed the Gujarat government’s August 15, 2022, decision to grant remission to the 11 convicts sentenced to life terms for the gangrape of Bano and her family members during the 2002 Gujarat riots and directed all of them to surrender within two weeks by January 21.
The Gujarat government had granted remission to all these 11 convicts on August 15, 2022, following a May 2022 judgment in which the top court held that an application of remission should be considered in line with the policy of the state where the crime was committed and not where the trial was held.
The Gujarat government's remission to all the 11 convicts of Bilkis created huge public outrage, with social activists, lawyers and civil society terming it as "miscarriage of justice."
The 11 convicts set free by the Gujarat government are Jaswant Nai, Govindbhai Nai, Shailesh Bhatt, Radhyesham Bhagwandas Shah, Bipin Chandra Joshi, Kesarbhai Vohania, Pradeep Modhiya, Bakabhai Vohania, Rajubhai Soni, Mitesh Chamanlal Bhat and Ramesh Rupabhai Chandana.
In a similar development in the case, the Gujarat government had on February 14 also moved the Supreme Court by filing a review petition against its January 8, 2024 order seeking to expunge certain remarks made against it for its conduct with regard to the premature release of the 11 convicts, the review petition said.
The Gujarat government, in its review petition filed before the top court, said that the remarks against it in the judgement has caused great prejudice to the state. It has thereby sought a direction from the SC to delete the adverse remarks against the state.