‘Gave enough time’: Supreme Court rejects 11 Bilkis convicts’ request for time

NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court on Friday rejected applications by the 11 men convicted in the Bilkis Bano gang rape case seeking more time to surrender, saying the top court’s January 8 order already gave them two weeks to surrender.

“We gave you enough time to arrange your affairs. The reasons cited by the applicants for postponement of surrender and report back to jail have no merit as these reasons do not prevent them from complying with our direction of January 8,” a bench of justices BV Nagarathna and Ujjal Bhuyan said.

According to the January 8 order that quashed the Gujarat government’s decision to grant remission to the convicts, the 11 men are required to surrender before the Gujarat jail authorities on or before January 21.

Also Read: 10 Bilkis case convicts ask Supreme Court for more time to surrender

Days before the deadline, they petitioned the top court to seek more time to surrender, citing reasons such as meeting family responsibilities, caring for aged parents, harvesting winter crops and health conditions.

At Friday’s hearing, the lawyers appearing for the convicts, one by one, presented their reasons to seek an extension.

But the bench was unmoved. “We had already given you two weeks to organise your affairs,” the court said.

Another convict, Bakabhai Khimabai Vohania, - he filed his application just before the case came up on Friday - said he was an agricultural labourer and needed to harvest crops.

Senior advocate V Chitambaresh appearing for one of the convicts, Ramesh Rupabhai Chandana, said that he was 62 years old, unmarried and had to take care of his aged parents. “I need some breathing time to surrender.”

“That gives you all the more reason to surrender,” the court replied.

Also Read: In Bilkis Bano order, the rule of law is upheld

The release of the 11 men and their public felicitation just months ahead of the Gujarat elections in 2022 sparked widespread condemnation. The January 8 verdict scrapping the remission held that Gujarat usurped the power of Maharashtra, where the original trial of the convicts happened, to grant remission. The bench also nullified a 2022 judgment by another bench of the top court that directed Gujarat to consider the remission applications of the 11 convicts, saying it was obtained by “playing fraud” on court.

Bano, 21 was gang-raped and her seven family members were killed during the 2002 riots in Gujarat. The top court had in December 2003, transferred the probe to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) and the next year, shifted the trial to Mumbai. The convicts were sentenced to life imprisonment by the Mumbai court in 2008 and the Bombay high court upheld their conviction and sentence in 2017.