Apex court corrects drift

For Bilkis Bano, who has been fighting a long and lonely battle for justice, the Supreme Court judgment on January 8 was worth all the travails she faced in all the over 20 years spent. On January 8 the Supreme Court cancelled the controversial “remission” granted by the Gujarat state government in 2022 to 11 accused persons involved in the most horrific crime on March 3,2002 in Gujarat. The Court, while hearing a clutch of petitions against the Gujarat government’s August 15, 2022 order, said on January 8 that the state of Gujarat wasn’t competent to release the convicts. The apex court said only the state where the trial had taken place – in this case, Maharashtra – has the right to take a call on remission of sentence. On March 3,2002, eleven men armed with swords, sickles and sticks, got into two white vehicles and went out on a pre-meditated human hunt. When they found their target, the 11 gang-raped the women among them and murdered a total of 14 people in cold blood. Those gang-raped included Bilkis (who was then pregnant), her three year-old daughter was murdered, her mother and other female members of her family too were gang-raped and done to death including children. Bilkis approached the Supreme Court in 2003 with a plea to dismiss the November 2002 Gujarat Police Summary report ‘A’in which the latter had sought for closure of the case since, though the incident took place, the police claimed it could not exactly identify the place and that all culprits responsible were untraceable. The trial was moved out of Gujarat to Maharashtra after Bilkis Bano received death threats. In the Mumbai court, charges were filed against 19 men, including six police officers and a government doctor. In January 2008, a special court convicted 11 accused of conspiring to rape a pregnant woman, murder, unlawful assembly, and of charges under other sections of the Indian Penal Code. The Head Constable was convicted of “making incorrect records” to save the accused. On the remission/release of the 11 accused in the 2022 crime, the apex court on January 8 said the government of Gujarat “usurped and abused power” not vested in it by releasing all the jailed accused persons serving life sentence. The court also directed the convicts to surrender before the authorities within two weeks. Though the Gujarat government tried to wash off its hands on the matter, such recommendations are made by a state to the Centre. However, as ‘the taste of the pudding is in the eating’ the fact is that neither Gujarat state nor the Centre has explained how the release came about. What seems worrying is that even another court in its May 13,2022 verdict, had asked the Gujarat government to “consider remission plea of convicts”. Commenting on this, the apex court noted that the order was secured by fraud. While setting aside the decision on remission, the bench said: “Compassion and sympathy has no role to play where rule of law is to be enforced. This court must be a beacon in preserving rule of law”.