BREAKING | Supreme Court Dismisses Bilkis Bano Case Convicts' Plea To Extend Time To Surrender Before Jail Authorities

The life-termers were released early by the State of Gujarat in August 2022 after serving 14 years of sentence, in terms of a 1992 remission policy. However, the bench ruled that the State of Gujarat lacked jurisdiction to grant remission in the case as the trial was held in the State of Maharashtra and granted the convicts two weeks time till this Sunday to surrender.

In view of the impending deadline, Senior Advocate V Chitambaresh, appearing for three convicts, mentioned their applications before a bench led by Justice Nagarathna yesterday morning seeking an urgent hearing of the extension pleas.  In response, Justice Nagarathna directed the registry to obtain instructions from Chief Justice DY Chandrachud on the issue of reconstitution of the bench that handed out this verdict and the listing of the applications today.

The Supreme Court on January 8 set aside the remission of 11 convicts sentenced to life imprisonment for multiple murders and gang rapes, including that of Bilkis Bano, during the 2002 communal riots in Gujarat. After an 11-day-long hearing that began in August, a division bench of Justices BV Nagarathna and Ujjal Bhuyan had reserved its judgment in this case on October 12. Advocate Shobha Gupta appeared for Bilkis, while Senior Advocates Indira Jaising, and advocates Vrinda Grover, Aparna Bhat, Nizamuddin Pasha, and Pratik R Bombarde represented various public interest litigants. Additional Solicitor-General SV Raju appeared for both the State of Gujarat and the Union of India. The now-released convicts were represented by Senior advocates Sidharth Luthra, Rishi Malhotra, S Guru Krishnakumar, Advocate Sonia Mathur, and others.