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The Supreme Court rejected a review petition filed by Bilkis Bano, reported Bar and Bench. The petition challenged the apex court’s May order that permitted the Gujarat government to decide on the remission of the 11 convicts who gangraped her and murdered seven members of her family during the 2002 Godhra riots in Gujarat.
Bilkis’s plea against the top court’s May 13 judgment claimed that the remission policy of the State of Maharashtra instead of Gujarat should apply in her case, since the trial in the case had happened in Maharashtra.
In the aftermath of the Godhra riots in Gujarat in 2002, Bikinis Bano and her family were attacked by a mob of 20-30 Hindu men armed with sickles, swords and sticks. Bilkis was brutally gangraped and seven of her family members were murdered.
Her case was taken up by the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) and Supreme Court, which ordered an investigation by the CBI.
Due to persistent death threats, the trial was moved out of Gujarat to Mumbai where charges were filed against 19 men, including six police officers and a government doctor who were accused of a cover-up.
In 2008,11 of the accused were convicted of conspiring to rape a pregnant woman, murder, unlawful assembly, and of charges under other sections of the Indian Penal Code. All 11 convicts were sentenced to life imprisonment by the court.
In 2019, convict Radheshyam Shah’s appeal to the Gujarat High Court for early release was rejected on the grounds that the trial was concluded in Maharashtra.
In 2022, Shah moved the Supreme Court after completing 15 years and four months of his life term. In May, the SC asked the Gujarat government to consider Shah’s application for premature release “within a period of two months”, as per the state’s 1992 remission policy. In August, the Gujarat government released all 11 convicts, after which Bilkis Bano filed the review petition with the SC.
A judgment of the Supreme Court becomes the law of the land, according to the Constitution. It is final because it provides certainty for deciding future cases. However, the Constitution gives, under Article 137, the Supreme Court the power to review any of its judgments or orders.
Express Network
Left-wing extremism in region almost eliminated, efforts must sustain: Shah (Page no. 9)
(GS Paper 3, Internal Security)
Left Wing Extremism (LWE), infiltration, human trafficking, and trans-border smuggling were the key issues discussed at the 25th Eastern Zonal Council meeting chaired by Union Home Minister Amit Shah.
Among those who attended the meeting were West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, Jharkhand CM Hemant Soren, Bihar Deputy CM Tejashwi Yadav and Odisha minister Pradeep Ama.
Shah said that Left-wing extremism has almost been eliminated from the country’s eastern region. “Efforts should be sustained as extremism should not re-emerge so that these states progress at par with other parts of the country.
Shah urged the states to create a district-level structure of the National Narcotics Coordination Portal (NCORD) to check the flow of narcotics.
The fight against drugs in the country is now at a crucial stage and there is a need to accelerate the campaign against drugs with the help of artificial intelligence.
Creation of improvised obstacles in the hyper-sensitive stretches of India-Bangladesh border and illumination of dark patches were also highlighted in the meeting.
The state governments were requested to coordinate with security agencies and improve the real-time information network against the Left-wing extremism.
Shah said that in the last eight years, more than 1,000 issues were discussed in the zonal council meetings and 93% of them were resolved.
In eight years from 2006 to 2013, a total of six meetings of the zonal councils were held (an average of less than one meeting per year), but in the eight years since 2014, despite the Covid-19 pandemic, a total of 23 meetings (including today’s meeting) were held (an average of three meetings per year).
No case small or big enough for courts, people look at judiciary to protect liberty: CJI Chandrachud (Page no. 9)
(GS Paper 2, Judiciary)
Stating that citizens can have confidence in judges to be “guardians of (their) liberties”, Chief Justice of India D Y Chandrachud reiterated that no case is big or small for the courts — be it the district courts, high courts or the Supreme Court.
It comes a day after a CJI-led bench of the apex court remarked that “it is in the seemingly small and routine matters involving grievances of citizens that issues of the moment, both in jurisprudential and constitutional terms, emerge.
CJI also pointed out that societal morality is often dictated by dominant groups, and that “vulnerable sections of society are unable to generate a counter-culture because of humiliation and suppression at the hands of oppressor groups…”
In ordinary circumstances, the convict would have served a two-year concurrent sentence in nine cases. He said the SC had to intervene in such a “seemingly innocuous case of a simple citizen of the nation”.
Touching on the issue of societal morality and dominant groups, he said, “Groups that have traditionally held positions of power in socioeconomic (and) political context of society have an advantage over the weaker sections in this bargaining process to reach adequate morality. Members belonging to the marginalised communities have little choice but to submit to the dominant culture for their own survival.