In a ruling on Friday, January 19, the Supreme Court dismissed applications from all eleven convicts in the Bilkis Bano case, denying them additional time to surrender before jail authorities. The court asserted that the reasons presented by the convicts for seeking an extension lacked merit. The original deadline for surrender, as per the January 8 judgment overturning their premature release, remains set for January 21.
The bench, comprising Justices BV Nagarathna and Ujjal Bhuyan, addressed multiple applications filed by the convicts who had sought an extension. The Supreme Court had, on January 8, set aside the remission orders issued by the Gujarat government, leading to the premature release of the 11 convicts sentenced to life imprisonment for their involvement in multiple murders and gang rapes during the 2002 Gujarat communal riots.
Released early in August 2022 after serving 14 years of their sentence, the life-termers had benefited from a 1992 remission policy. However, the court ruled that Gujarat lacked jurisdiction to grant remission, as the trial had taken place in Maharashtra. The convicts were given a two-week period until January 21 to surrender.
Senior Advocate V Chitambaresh, representing three convicts, sought an urgent hearing for extension pleas before Justice Nagarathna. Responding to the urgency, Justice Nagarathna directed the registry to consult Chief Justice DY Chandrachud regarding the reconstitution of the bench and the listing of the applications.
In the landmark January 8 decision, the Supreme Court nullified the remission granted to the 11 convicts, emphasizing that Gujarat lacked jurisdiction in this case. The division bench, after an 11-day-long hearing starting in August, reserved its judgment on October 12. Bilkis Bano was represented by Advocate Shobha Gupta, while public interest litigants were represented by Senior Advocates Indira Jaising, Vrinda Grover, Aparna Bhat, Nizamuddin Pasha, and Pratik R Bombarde. Additional Solicitor-General SV Raju appeared for both the State of Gujarat and the Union of India, while the released convicts were represented by Senior Advocates Sidharth Luthra, Rishi Malhotra, S Guru Krishnakumar, Advocate Sonia Mathur, and others.
