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Supreme Court judge recuses from Bilkis plea on convicts
A bench of justices Ajay Rastogi and Bela M Trivedi told Bano’s lawyer that one of them – justice Trivedi – could not hear the matter. Justice Trivedi was earlier a judge of the Gujarat high court.
The Supreme Court on Tuesday deferred the hearing on Bilkis Bano’s plea challenging the Gujarat government’s decision to grant remission to 11 people convicted for gang-raping her and murdering her family members during the 2002 Gujarat riots, after one of the judges recused herself from the trial.
A bench of justices Ajay Rastogi and Bela M Trivedi told Bano’s lawyer that one of them – justice Trivedi – could not hear the matter. Justice Trivedi was earlier a judge of the Gujarat high court.
Advocate Shobha Gupta, appearing for Bano, told the court that the matter required urgent hearing as this was the last working week before the court breaks for the winter vacation.
“List the matter before a bench of which one of us is not part of,” the bench ordered without specifying any reason for the recusal of justice Trivedi.
Bano had challenged the August 15 decision of the Gujarat government permitting the premature release of the 11 convicts who were serving a life term, under a 1992 remission policy.
The state government said its decision relied on a Supreme Court decision in May that allowed it to consider the remission plea of one of the convicts as per the policy existing during the date of conviction. The state now has a more stringent remission policy, which came into effect in 2014, but it wasn’t in effect when the convicts were sentenced on January 21, 2008.
In her petition, Bano said that the gravity of the crime would itself disentitle the convicts from getting the benefit of an early release. Explaining the delay in approaching the top court, she said, “The petitioner was completely shattered with the early release of all the convicts and could not regroup herself to be able to take a decision to challenge their release the earliest, more so. when there was not even a piece of information of the basis or the grounds on which they were collectively granted such clemency.”
Bano had also moved a review petition challenging the top court’s May 13 order permitting the state to decide on the remission as per the 1992 policy. This petition was separately heard by a bench of justices Ajay Rastogi and Vikram Nath in chamber. Till the time of publishing, the decision on the review petition was not uploaded on the court’s website.
The state’s decision to release the 11 convicts had sparked public outrage and it was challenged in a clutch of petitions filed by Trinamool Congress MP Mahua Moitra, former CPI MP Subhashini Ali, journalist Revati Laul, and professor Roop Rekha Verma. These petitions pointed out that the state had amended its remission policy in 2014 and clearly held that convicts of gang rape will not be entitled for early release. They demanded that this policy ought to apply in the present case.
The investigation in the case was handed over to the CBI and the trial was transferred to a Maharashtra court by the Supreme Court.
A special CBI court in Mumbai had on January 21, 2008 sentenced the 11 to life imprisonment.
