‘Where will people go if they do not get justice from SC’: DCW chief on dismissal of Bilkis Bano’s review plea

When people do not get justice from the Supreme Court, where do they go, Delhi Commission for Women (DCW) chief Swati Maliwal asked on Saturday after the apex court dismissed a review plea filed by Bilkis Bano. Bano was gang-raped and seven members of her family were killed during the 2002 Gujarat riots. The Supreme Court has dismissed Bano’s plea seeking a review of its earlier order by which it had asked the Gujarat government to consider the petitions for remission of the sentences of 11 convicts in the gang rape case.

“Supreme Court rejected Bilkis Bano’s plea. Bilkis Bano was gang-raped when she was 21 years old, and her three-year-old son and six family members were murdered but Gujarat government freed all the rapists. If justice won’t come from Supreme Court, where will people go?” Maliwal asked on Twitter.

According to procedures, review pleas against apex court judgments are decided in chambers by circulation by the judges who were part of the judgment under review.
Bano’s review plea came up for in-chamber consideration on December 13 before a bench of justices Ajay Rastogi and Vikram Nath.

“I am directed to inform you that the review petition above mentioned filed in Supreme Court was dismissed by the court on December 13, 2022,” read a communication sent to Bano’s counsel Shobha Gupta by the apex court’s assistant registrar.

The gang rape survivor had sought a review of the top court’s May 13 order on a plea moved by one of the convicts.

The apex court had asked the state government to consider the plea for a premature release of the convicts in terms of its policy of July 9, 1992 about deciding a remission petition within a period of two months.

All 11 convicts were granted remission by the Gujarat government and released on August 15.