The Supreme Court on Friday rejected the applications by convicts in the Bilkis Bano case seeking an extension of time beyond January 21, 2023, to surrender and report back to jail authorities, holding that plea for the enhancement of time to surrender was devoid of merits.
Dismissing the applications for an extension of time to surrender, a bench of Justice B V Nagarathna and Justice Ujjal Bhuyan said that the reasons cited for the extension of time to surrender were without merit. “The reasons cited by applicants to seek postponement of surrender and report back to jail have no merit inasmuch as those reasons in no way prevent them from complying with our directions. Hence the miscellaneous applications are dismissed. Pending applications if any also stand disposed,” the bench said on Friday.
The top court on January 8, 2024, had directed all the 11 convicts to surrender and report back to jail authorities within two weeks which expires on January 21, 2024.
The Supreme Court had on January 8, 2024, quashed the remission of sentence granted to 11 convicts in Bilkis Bano gangrape and murder of nine members of her family including her three-year-old daughter during the 2002 Gujarat riots, and had directed them to surrender and report back to jail authorities.
The majority of the convicts in their applications had cited grounds ranging from time to recover after recent surgery, harvest of winter crops, son’s marriage, arranged finances, and dependency of parents for seeking an extension of time from four weeks to six weeks to surrender and report back to jail authorities.
Quashing the August 10, 2019, Gujarat government order granting remission of sentence to 11 convicts, the Supreme Court by January 8, 2024, judgment, in an indictment of the Gujarat government had said that it had usurped the jurisdiction of the Maharashtra government in granting remission and acted in “tandem and complicity” with one of the convicts.