A bench of Justices Ajay Rastogi and CT Ravikumar tagged the matter with the main petition pending before the apex court.
Photo: Supreme Court of India
The Supreme Court, on Friday, agreed to hear the plea of a women’s organisation seeking directions to revoke the remission granted to 11 convicts, who had gang-raped Bilkis Bano and murdered her family members during the 2002 Godhra riots.
A bench of Justices Ajay Rastogi and CT Ravikumar tagged the matter with the main petition pending before the apex court. The plea was filed by the National Federation of India, whose General Secretary is Annie Raja, challenged the remission of sentence and the release of convicts in the case.
Earlier, the top court had posted on November 29 pleas challenging the decision of the Gujarat government to grant remission to the 11 convicts.
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Gujarat government in its affidavit has defended remission granted to convicts saying they completed 14 years of sentence in prison and their “behaviour was found to be good”.
The State government said it has considered the cases of all 11 convicts as per the policy of 1992 and remission was granted on August 10, 2022, and the Central government also approved the premature release of convicts.
It is pertinent to note that the remission was not granted under the circular governing grant of remission to prisoners as part of the celebration of “Azadi Ka Amrit Mahotsav”, it has said.
The affidavit stated, “State government considered all the opinions and decided to release 11 prisoners since they have completed 14 years and above in prisons and their behaviour was found to be good.”
Gujarat government had granted remission to 11 convicts, who had gang-raped Bilkis Bano and murdered her family members during the 2002 Godhra riots.
(SNS with inputs from agencies)
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