Will delay in paying fine not affect remission, SC asks Bilkis case convicts

The Supreme Court on Thursday asked the 11 convicts out on remission in the Bilkis Bano gang rape to explain if a purported delay on their part in depositing the fines imposed as part of their sentence had any bearing on their early release from prison.,

The Supreme Court on Thursday asked the 11 convicts out on remission in the Bilkis Bano gangrape to explain if a purported delay on their part in depositing the fines imposed as part of their sentence had any bearing on their early release from prison, a notice issued after the court was told that all convicts deposited their fines this week before a Mumbai court.

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A bench of justices BV Nagarathna and Ujjal Bhuyan questioned the timing of the convicts’ move after the petitioners, including Bano, in one of their grounds taken to question the remission, had submitted that the convicts’ failing to deposit the fine made them liable to serving a sentence of another year.

The trial against each convict was held in Mumbai and in January 2008, they were sentenced to life imprisonment for 14 murders and three rapes committed during the 2002 Gujarat riots. The fine imposed in each case was ₹2,000 and failing to pay this carried a default sentence of one year imprisonment. This added up to 34 years of additional sentence for defaulting on fine. Bano along with several public interest litigation (PIL) litigants insisted that this period had to be undergone prior to consideration of their remission.

The bench said, “Do you apprehend this has a bearing on your remission. This is an act which is sub-judice (an act done when a matter is pending consideration before the Court).”

Two of the convicts had filed applications in the top court on August 28 for permission to deposit the fine. The bench said, “You have asked for our permission and without obtaining it, you have deposited the fine.”

The application stated that the convicts are “remorseful” of the unfortunate events that transpired for which they had to suffer punishment of life term. On completion of 14 years of actual sentence, the state processed their remission pleas last year following a Supreme Court judgment of May 13, 2022 in the case of one of the convicts – Radheshyam Bhagwandas Shah --- directing the Gujarat government to decide on his remission plea under a policy of 1992, existing at the time of their conviction.

Senior advocate Sidharth Luthra. appearing for one of the convicts, said: “This will have no bearing on the issue of remission. I advised them it will be appropriate to do so as the matter is before the top court and this part of the controversy (surrounding remission) as argued by the petitioners will not survive.”

The Court told Luthra, “At the time when remission was granted, the fine was not paid. If you say this has no bearing, then there was no need to deposit.”

Luthra explained that the convicts had filed applications simultaneously before the trial court in Mumbai to deposit the fine. “We were under the impression the trial court may not accept our application,” he said.

Luthra said the question of remission does not depend on payment of fine as in matters of premature release, the Courts are guided by the concept of reforming prisoners. He submitted that the order of fine and default punishment imposed by the trial court is in the nature of a penalty and not sentence. He further argued that punishment of life sentence is based on the reformative policy underlying the criminal justice system while death sentence, on the other hand, seeks to act as a deterrent against the crime.

Luthra submitted the receipts of deposit of fines by the 11 convicts deposited on Thursday (August 31) and gave a copy to the victim’s lawyer Shobha Gupta. As his arguments remained inconclusive, the bench posted the matter for hearing on September 14.

Bano was 21, and five months pregnant when she was gangraped while fleeing the violence during the 2002 riots, and her three-year-old daughter was one of the seven people killed. The release of convicts in August last year sparked a public outrage as several petitions came to be filed in the top court by Trinamool Congress MP Mahua Moitra, former CPI member Subhashini Ali, among others. Later in November 2022, Bano approached the top court against the remission granted to her rapists.