'Petitioners Have No Locus Standi': Bilkis Bano Case Convict Opposes Plea Against Remission In Supreme Court

Pursuant to the order of the Supreme Court in the petition challenging the order of Gujarat Government allowing premature release of 11 convicts sentenced to life in the Bilkis Bano case for gangrape & murder, asking the petitioners to array the 11 accused as respondents, one of the accused persons has now filed a counter affidavit. On 25th August 2022, while hearing a petition filed by CPI (M) MP Subhasini Ali, journalist Revati Laul & Prof Roop Rekha Verma, a Bench comprising the then Chief Justice of India NV Ramana and Justices Ajay Rastogi and Vikram Nath issued notice to the State of Gujarat and directed the impleadment of the accused persons.At the outset, the counter affidavit has challenged the maintainability of the writ petition which was filed by politicians, activists and journalists, who, it claims, are 'third party strangers to the said case'. It submits that involvement of such third parties, without locus standi, has a propensity to unsettle the position of law and open floodgates for strangers to intervene in criminal matters. In fact the counter imputes ulterior motive upon the petitioners for moving the Apex Court with the present writ petition. Placing reliance on the judgment of the Apex Court in Simranjit Singh Mann v. Union of India it is argued that petitions by strangers who are not seeking to enforce their fundamental rights cannot be filed under Article 32 of the Constitution. It goes a step further to argue that such third party interferences in criminal cases have been previously discouraged by the Apex Court. The counter affidavit refers to the judgment in Janata Dal v. H.S. Chowdhary, wherein the Apex Court had observed - "Even if there are million questions of law to be deeply gone into and examined in a criminal case of this nature registered against specified accused persons, it is for them and them alone to raise all such questions and challenged the proceedings initiated against them at the appropriate time before the proper forum and not for third parties under the garb of public interest litigants."Reliance is placed on the judgment passed by the Apex Court on 13.05.2022, wherein it was decided that the appropriate government to grant remission would be the Gujarat Government and directed it to consider the plea within a period of two months in terms of its 1992 remission policy. The counter affidavit notes that the said judgment had clarified that remission is to be considered on the basis of the policy of premature release which existed at the time of the conviction by the Trial Court and not a subsequent policy. Adding that the writ petition intends to challenge the judgment of the Apex Court passed in May, 2022, it is averred that the same can be done only by way of a Review Petition and not a writ filed under Article 32. Further, it submits -"the present Writ Petition under Article 32 is nothing but a grossest abuse in as much as on one hand the petitioner pleads that she does not have the copy of the remission order and yet without ascertaining the reasons for grant of remission the said order has been assailed by the writ petition with a further prayer that such order of remission should be quashed."The counter-affidavit calls the writ petition 'speculative' and states that 'not a single ground has been alleged in the said petition as to what fundamental wrong is committed in the said remission order'. BackgroundThe crime took place amidst the 2002 communal riots in Gujarat. A five-month pregnant Bilkis Bano, who was around 19 years old then, was fleeing their village in Dahod district along with his family members. When they reached the outskirts of the Chhapparwad village Bilkis, her mother and three other women were raped and 14 of her family members, including her three-year-old daughter, were murdered. Owing to the political influence of the accused persons and given the sensitivity of the issue, the investigation was handed over to the CBI as per the directions of the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court also shifted the trial to Maharashtra. In 2008, a sessions court in Mumbai sentenced the accused to life imprisonment.After serving 15 years in jail, one of the accused approached the Supreme Court with a plea of his premature release, which was earlier rejected by the Gujarat High Court on the ground that the appropriate government would be that of Maharashtra and not Gujarat.On August 15, the 11 convicts were released from jail pursuant to a decision taken by the Gujarat Government to grant them remission after completion of 14 years of sentence.

'Petitioners Have No Locus Standi': Bilkis Bano Case Convict Opposes Plea Against Remission In Supreme Court

Sohini Chowdhury

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