The Supreme Court has dismissed a petition by 2002 post-Godhra riot-connected gang rape survivor Bilkis Yakub Rasool who had sought review of the SC’s May 13 judgment which permitted the Gujarat government to consider the remission pleas of 11 gang rape and murder convicts sentenced to life, leading to their release from jail.
Through her lawyer, Shobha Gupta, Bilkis had requested an open court hearing for her review petition, in which she sought to overturn the May 13 ruling that Maharashtra would be the "appropriate state" to decide again on the lifers' remission pleas after they were convicted of gang-raping numerous victims, including a pregnant Bilkis, and killing 14 people during the Gujarat riots. She had contended that Maharashtra, and not Gujarat, should consider the remission.
Bilkis’s writ petition challenging the Gujarat government’s decision to remit the remaining sentences of the lifers remains pending, along with similar petitions by activist Subhasini Ali and others, before a bench headed by Justice Ajay Rastogi.
On May 13, a bench presided over by Justice Rastogi decided that as the occurrence took place in Gujarat, that state should be the one to take the remission requests under the 1992 Remission Rules into consideration. On December 13, exactly seven months later, a bench of Justices Rastogi and Vikram Nath heard her review petition in private, absent any legal representation. It denied her request for a public court hearing as well as her review petition.
The bench said, “In our opinion, there appears no error apparent on the face of record, which may call for review of the judgment dated May 13, 2022, and as regards the judgments on which the reliance has been placed, none of the judgments are of any assistance to the review petitioner. In our opinion, no case for review is made out. The review petition is accordingly dismissed. ”