On 8 January, the SC quashed the remission granted to the 11 men convicted of gangraping Bano and murdering members of her family.
Published Jan 09, 2024 | 10:34 AM ⚊ Updated Jan 09, 2024 | 10:34 AM
Bilkis Bano's statement after SC verdict. (Supplied)
In the Bilkis Bano case, the Supreme Court, on Monday, 8 January, quashed the remission granted to the 11 men convicted of gangraping Bano and murdering several members of her family in the 2002 Gujarat riots.
Reacting to the verdict, Bilkis Bano released a statement on Monday, issued through her advocate Shobha Gupta.
“Today is truly the New Year for me. I have wept tears of relief. I have smiled for the first time in over a year and half. I have hugged my children. It feels like a stone the size of a mountain has been lifted from my chest, and I can breathe again. This is what justice feels like,” Bano said in her statement.
She thanked the Supreme Court for their verdict in her favour, “I thank the honourable Supreme Court of India for giving me, my children, and women everywhere, this vindication and hope in the promise of equal justice for all.”
Bilkis Bano was 21 years old and five months pregnant when she was raped while fleeing the horror of the communal riots that broke out after the Godhra train-burning incident in Gujarat. Her three-year-old daughter was among the seven family members killed in the riots.
In her statement, she thanked her family and friends for their unwavering support, “I have said before, and I say again today, journeys like mine can never be made alone. I have had my husband and my children by my side. I have had my friends who have given me so much love at a time of such hate, and held my hand at each difficult turn. I have had an extraordinary lawyer, Advocate Shobha Gupta, who has walked with me unwaveringly for over 20 long years, and who never allowed me to lose hope in the idea of justice.”
Recalling her experience following the release of her rapists in 2022, Bano wrote in the statement, “A year and half ago, on August 15, 2022, when those who had destroyed my family and terrorised my very existence, were given an early release, I simply collapsed. I felt I had exhausted my reservoir of courage. Until a million solidarities came my way.”
She added, “Thousands of ordinary people and women of India came forward. They stood with me, spoke for me, and filed PIL petitions in the Supreme Court. 6,000 people from all over, and 8,500 people from Mumbai wrote appeals; 10,000 people wrote an Open Letter, as did 40,000 people from 29 districts of Karnataka.”
She thanked each of these people in her statement, “…my gratitude for your precious solidarity and strength. You gave me the will to struggle, to rescue the idea of justice not just for me, but for every woman in India. I thank you.”
She ended her statement with a dua that she found apt in the situation — the rule of law, above all else, and
equality before law, for all.
On 15 August 2022, all 11 convicts were granted remission by the Gujarat government and released. However, on Monday, the Supreme Court Bench of Justices BV Nagarathna and Ujjal Bhuyan said that the Gujarat government was not the appropriate government to pass the remission order.
The apex court held that the judgement of 13 May 2022 (which directed the Gujarat government to consider remission) is a nullity as it was obtained by ”playing fraud on the court” and by suppressing material facts.
“The Gujarat government usurped the powers of the Maharashtra government, acting in furtherance of the judgement dated 13 May 2022, which is, in our opinion a nullity. It was the state of Maharashtra which was the appropriate government to consider remission,” the Bench noted.
“The State of Gujarat acted in complicity with the convicts…it was this very apprehension which led this court to transfer the trial out of the state,” the Bench added.
The convicts have been directed to surrender before jail authorities within two weeks.
