The Supreme Court on Wednesday, 22 March, agreed to form a special bench to hear pleas against the Gujarat government order, which allowed the premature release of the 11 men convicted in the Bilkis Bano case.
The case: The Hindu men were convicted of gang-raping Bano, who was pregnant at the time, and murdering seven members of her family, including her three-year-old daughter during the 2002 riots following the Sabarmati Express fire in Gujarat's Godhra.
Listing delayed? Last month too, CJI DY Chandrachud had said that he would constitute a special bench to take up the case.
In fact, Bano's lawyer Shobha Gupta has said, according to LiveLaw, that the case has already been mentioned before the top court four times earlier but it is yet to be taken for preliminary hearing:
First mentioned On 30 November last year
Mentioned again on 14 December and was tentatively listed on 2 January this year
On January 20, Gupta again mentioned the case
On 7 February, the CJI agreed to constitute a special bench to hear the pleas
Yes, but: " Matter not listed and no date is being shown despite passing of 41 days since last mentioning," Gupta told the court.
More details: In May 2022, a bench led by Justice Ajay Rastogi had held that the Gujarat government did have the jurisdiction to consider the remission pleas of the 11 convicts since the offence took place in Gujarat.
The men were then released on 15 August. Bano had gone on to file a petition seeking review of the top court's ruling, but the court dismissed it in December last year.
(With inputs from LiveLaw)
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