New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Tuesday issued notice on a plea by two convicts in the Bilkis Bano gangrape case, linked to the 2002 post-Godhra riots, challenging a 2017 Bombay High Court verdict that upheld their conviction and sentence.
A Bench of Justices Rajesh Bindal and Vijay Bishnoi sought responses from the Gujarat and Maharashtra governments on the special leave petitions (SLP) filed by Bipinchandra Kanaiyalal Joshi @ Lala Doctor and Pradip Ramanlal Modhiya.
The matter has been posted for further hearing on May 5.
The petitioners have assailed the May 4, 2017, judgment of the Bombay High Court, which had confirmed the conviction and life sentence awarded by the trial court to 11 accused in connection with the gangrape of Bilkis Bano and the murder of her family members.
In its detailed verdict, the Bombay High Court had not only upheld the conviction of the main accused but also came down heavily on certain police officials and medical officers. “Thus, it is evident that they were not only casual in conducting the postmortem but suppressed the material information by way of omission,” it had observed.
The Bombay HC further held that the acts of the police and medical officers formed “a chain of suppression of facts causing disappearance of the evidence with intent to screen the offenders and save them from punishment.”
Setting aside the acquittal of several officials, the Bombay High Court held them guilty under Sections 201 and 218 of the Indian Penal Code, while holding that the ingredients of Section 217 IPC were not established.
“At the same time, we hereby confirm the conviction and sentence imposed on accused nos. 1, 2 and 4 to 12 as imposed by the trial Court,” the Bombay High Court had said, dismissing the appeals filed by the convicts against their conviction.
The criminal case pertains to the violence that broke out in Gujarat following the Godhra train burning incident in February 2002.
Bilkis Bano, who was five months pregnant at the time, was gangraped, and several members of her family, including her three-year-old daughter, were killed.
The Supreme Court had earlier, in January 2024, set aside the remission granted to 11 convicts by the Gujarat government, terming the orders “stereotyped and cyclostyled” and legally unsustainable.
It had directed the convicts to surrender before the jail authorities within two weeks.
The top court had held that the Gujarat government lacked jurisdiction to grant remission and that the earlier order of the apex court permitting consideration of remission was obtained by suppression of material facts.
The case was transferred by the Supreme Court from Gujarat to Mumbai in 2004 to ensure a fair trial.
In 2008, a Special CBI court in Mumbai convicted the 11 accused and sentenced them to life imprisonment for offences including gangrape and murder during the communal riots.
(IANS)
