In the Bilkis Bano case, the Supreme Court on Jan 8 quashed the Gujarat government’s order to release the convicts early.
Supreme Court Order:
The Supreme Court ruled on the pleas against the early release of the 11 convicts in the Bilkis Bano gang rape case. It canceled the pretrial release and ordered the 11 convicts to return to jail.
The Supreme Court on Monday quashed the Gujarat government’s order granting early release to 11 convicts in the 2002 Bilkis Bano gang rape case in which seven members of her family were killed.
The judges said that the riots in the state and the related orders were “uniform” and that the orders were passed without thinking.
A bench comprising Justices PV Nagaratna and Ujjal Bhuyan ordered the convicts to surrender to the jail authorities within two weeks.
The Bench hearing the Public Interest Litigation challenging the early release held that the Gujarat government had no jurisdiction to execute the order of early release.
The Supreme Court has made it clear that only the state where a case is tried and the convicts are sentenced has jurisdiction to decide the plea of pardon of the convicts.
100-page judgment:
Therefore, since the trial of this case took place in Maharashtra, the jurisdiction to grant early release belongs to Maharashtra. “We don’t have to go into other matters. But to decide, that is up to us. The Supreme Court also observed that the rule of law is being violated because the Gujarat government has usurped power not vested in it and abused its power.”
On that basis, the bench issued a more than 100-page judgment that the orders of early release deserved to be quashed.
In another session, the Supreme Court ruled that the order passed on May 13, 2022, asking the Gujarat government to consider the pardon plea of the convicts, was ‘null and void’.
This is an important case and the judges have observed that the authority of law has been violated by granting premature release against the order of this court.
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