Bilkis Bano Case Archives - Lokmarg

‘Remission to Rapists Shouldn’t Have Been Granted in the First Place’

By LokMarg 16th January 2024

Swati Goswami, an Ahmedabad-based writer and human rights activist, says the Bilkis Bano case is a glaring example of how the BJP operates to skirt the law. Her views

Rape is an act of vengeance and violence against an individual’s refusal, or, against the identity of a community. Remission of rapists without the consent of the victim/survivor is a fraud. Just like a rapist misuses physical power, the State misused its power brazenly to remit the rapists and murderers of Bilkis Bano and her family.

Was Bilkis consulted before remitting her 11 rapists? Did the convicts apologise and plead forgiveness for their heinous crimes? The answer is an emphatic NO. With the power to remit comes the responsibility to involve the survivor for reformative justice. Remission has to be reasonable, which in this case is far from reality. What if the convicts had tried to harm the family again? Who would have been responsible? If a misleading writ petition can result in a two-judge bench changing the decision, how can we trust the judicial system?

I am extremely happy for Bilkis, her dogged resilience, her strength of character, and her undeservingly long and protracted struggle for justice. However, I won’t congratulate the Supreme Court for revoking the remission order because the remission should never have been permitted in the first instance! How could the remission plea be heard with such ignorance by the highest court of the land for such a horrific crime? How could they not know that the crime was a part of the widespread and vicious communal violence of 2002 in Gujarat, which has not only been a barbaric event in itself, but which has also resulted in what the country is paying for since 2014? The resulting social and communal polarization in Gujarat literally propelled Narendra Modi as the next chief minister yet again, and, eventually, as the prime minister of India.

The very reason this case was moved out of Gujarat was because a free and fair trial wouldn’t have been possible here. Then, how could the court take the government at face-value?

I won’t actually blame the Gujarat government because that is how the BJP operates. That is why the case was moved to Maharashtra. The Gujarat riots and its modus-operandi, targeting one community, are well documented — that is why Bilkis was raped and her family killed.

We expect no sensitivity and justice from them. However, the judges, as the final custodians of justice, what were they thinking? This is about a gang-rape survivor, her little child who was smashed to death, her murdered family and her entire community! Where is the seriousness of the law?

Are we to believe that a pregnant gang-rape survivor will not get justice unless five other women file separate petitions? Bilkis moved the court against the remission after one of the convict’s challenged the other petitions by “complete strangers”. Why should she fight alone? It was not a personal crime. It was a social crime with the BJP brass as its naked back-dancers — performing in front of the whole country.

The story of Bilkis is not a women’s issue, even though only women came forward to undo the injustice. It is about the ugly binaries of this country, especially in the contemporary era.

ALSO READ: ‘Bilkis Banop’s Rapists Were Lionized’

Bilkis won, not once but twice, against the highest level of political, communal and patriarchal violence. What she managed to achieve is incredible, especially as a Muslim woman in India, especially in such bleak and difficult times. I cannot even begin to imagine her rage at the sight of her rapists being felicitated or called ‘Sanskari’. Bilkis stood firm against the entire might of the political system and fought each time it tried to violate her.

And we must not forget her husband, Yakub, who stood by her throughout the unimaginable trauma. In a society, where men rarely stand against their own families for their wives, Yakub is a role model as he stood against a mighty government. For a Muslim man in India to show such courage against decades-long State-backed injustice is laudable.

Some of us had met him after the rapists were released. He mentioned how intimidating their Whatsapp status and indirect but intentional conversations were. He feared for the safety of Bilkis and his family. Some Muslim families had started moving out in fear of another round of violence following the remission. Such is the nature of this crime! It was both traumatic and enraging to see Yakub in tears.

Finally, they won. Justice BV Nagarathna and Justice Ujjal Bhuyan have proved that the Supreme Court can choose dignified commitment to justice. The apex court cannot bring back her family and undo her trauma, but Bilkis Bano can finally move on. It should never have taken this long to rebuild her life. Indeed. I wish every woman in India the — ‘Bilkis strength’ — but never her trauma!

The narrator has focused on gender violence and human rights violations in Kashmir and other ‘occupied’ zones.

As told to Amit Sengupta

For more details visit us: https://lokmarg.com/

The Ground Is Shifting – Slowly, Silently

By Amit Sengupta 29th July 2023

Battle not with monsters, lest ye become a monster, and if you gaze into the abyss, the abyss gazes also into you.
– Nietzsche

If in the beginning was the word, then silence is not always golden. If, in the beginning is silence, then there is always a twist in the dark narrative. If a tragedy follows a nightmare, and a nightmare then follows a tragedy, and it thereby becomes a damned vicious circle, then the wordless silence can become sinister, almost diabolical.

As the condemned people of Manipur would tell you.

Or, ask the people of a ‘democratic, secular, pluralist, socialist’ India – the happy story of their lives since the fated summer of 2014, sans the dominant narrative of fake news synchronized ritualistically by fanatic loyalists of the media and the army of thoughtless bhakts. Ask them, and a torrent of clueless, insensitive and incoherent verbiage floods the vitiated atmosphere, like waters from a filthy gutter, and all forms of ethics, form and content, argument and ideas, go for a toss. If the fake messiah has spoken, or chosen silence, then it will be as it is; Manipur, and the country, can go, get damned!

So what is it that compels him to choose this uncanny silence in the face of the whole world asking him to speak up?

Is it something new? No. Not at all.

Did he choose to offer condolence to her family when journalist Gauri Lankesh was murdered by Hindutva fundamentalists, no less vicious in their murderous thoughts and actions, as Islamic fundamentalists? Did he choose to share the grief on the killing of ace photographer Danish Siddiqui, a Pulitzer award-winner, on the frontlines of a battle between the Taliban and western forces in Afghanistan, even while the entire Western media made their homage, and even the Afghan president shared his sorrow with the family of Danish?

So why was Sanna Irshad Mattoo, a brilliant Kashmiri woman journalist, clicking her rare and precious pictures against all odds in an extremely difficult conflict zone, denied the joy of visiting the US to collect her coveted Pulitzer? What is the petty pleasure which an ageing and fossilized establishment gets, (with not an iota of positive thoughts inside their political unconscious) by denying a young, female role-model the right to her prestigious award, while, in contrast, they should be celebrating her and the honour she received?

Not only that, they have put other Kashmiri journalists in prison, in a state, where, literally, the media has been gagged since the abrogation of Article 370, the clampdown, and the military occupation, subjecting the entire population into an eternal state of trauma. Is this how they imagine the people of Kashmir can be integrated to the idea of a mainland?

Ditto with late UR Ananthamurthy and Girish Karnad, great cultural icons. Ditto with our world champion women wrestlers, who were dragged and brutalized on the streets of Delhi, even while he walked like a mythical monarch holding a mythical Sengol, in the new Parliament building, boycotted by the entire Opposition. Even while a muscular BJP bahubali from UP, accused of hounding and harassing women wrestlers, including by a minor, still roams scot-free! He even has the audacity to speak about the Manipuri women who were paraded naked on the streets, gang-raped and mob-lynched, even while the BJP-led regime in Imphal and the entire security establishment tacitly looked the other way.

Chief of the Delhi Commission for Women, Swati Maliwal, one of the few brave public figures who chose to go to Manipur and meet its people in the relief camps, said: “I went to Churachandpur alone, without any security. I met the families of the two women who were stripped, paraded naked and sexually assaulted. If I can meet them, why can’t the chief minister? Why can’t he go to Churachandpur and other affected places in his bullet-proof car?”

Indeed, in one case, a boy was allegedly picked up by the cops for putting up a Facebook post, and, then, guess what did they do? They gave him away to a blood-thirsty mob!

In another case, two Kuki women working in a car-wash garage in Imphal were reportedly gang-raped, beaten up and murdered by a mob, and the spectacle went on for a long time, but the cops and para-military forces were nowhere around. A freedom-fighter’s mother was burnt alive inside her own home. A Kargil soldier’s wife was murdered. And someone else’s daughter has been gang-raped. Horror stories are endless and no one knows when these tragedies and nightmares will at all end!

In another macabre twist, as in the ghastly parade of a Kuki mother and daughter, stripped on the streets, which led to huge national outrage, several such instances point to the active role of women in instigating and supporting these grotesque public spectacles – the murderous assaults on the body and soul of other women — as allies of male rapists and murderers.

What have they reduced this beautiful state of Manipur into? How have they turned such nice people into ugly monsters?

ALSO READ: Every Corner of Imphal Has Become a Relief Camp

Certainly, all of this, reminds us of the state-sponsored genocide in Gujarat, 2002, when innocent citizens of India, including children, were raped, gang-raped, burnt alive and murdered, while a large population celebrated and glorified the genocide and murderers. No wonder, they were garlanding the killers and rapists in the Bilquis Bano case, whereby, her child, family and friends were murdered! Not only that, one of the killers was being felicitated by the BJP in Gujarat.

So what is this goddamned message to the entire country and the world? We will do what we will, you can go get damned!

While miscellaneous monsters, mob-lynch specialists and gang-rapists are currently ruling the roost, apparently backed by the regime, it has been three years since brilliant, young scholars, Umar Khalid, Gulfisha, Sharjeel, among others like Khalid Saifi, are rotting in jail. Their crime? Protesting peacefully against the communal and anti-constitutional CAA.

In this litany of infinite injustice, there is not one moment of pause. There is not one word spoken which can heal, console and soothe the nation’s soul. There is not one gesture, not even symbolic and ephemeral, which can help the nation walk away from the vicious, the sinister, the diabolical. It is this eternal festival of hell-fire which hounds this condemned land, where evil stalks, like a death-wish, crushing all that comes on its way.

Amidst this despair and pessimism, what is it that compels him to choose this compulsive silence? In contrast, he is in full force, waxing eloquent to hired, mostly Gujarati NRIs, all over the world, while being honoured with sundry awards, even as he makes multi-billion arms deals – to benefit whom, in a country with tens of thousands jobless, homeless, poor and hungry?

For one, there is a path-breaking paradigm shift happening right now in India which has rattled him and rendered him speechless. Two, he and his genius think-tank, seem totally clueless in their unimaginative counter-attacks – using metaphors which only boomerangs on them.

Consider this golden statement of someone who has otherwise chosen silence when faced with a ravaged Manipur, or, the sexual harassment of our women wrestlers, etc. According to a BJP MP, while speaking to them in a parliamentary party meeting, “He said the East India Company, the Indian National Congress, the Indian Mujahideen and the Popular Front of India also had India in their names.”

INDIA has undoubtedly rattled him and his party. There is a new wind blowin’ in this ‘New India’. India needs hope and healing. India will find hope and healing. The nation will definitely resurrect and redefine its own destiny; its own secular democracy and its own rainbow coalition. It’s time for him to go. Enough is enough!

Bilkis Bano Case: SC Dismisses Plea Against Remission Of 11 Convicts

By LokMarg 17th December 2022

The Supreme Court has dismissed the plea of Bilkis Bano seeking a review of its earlier order by which it had asked the Gujarat government to consider the plea for the remission of 11 convicts in a gangrape case under 1992 policy.

A bench of judges headed by Justice Ajay Rastogi dismissed the review plea of Bano who had challenged the apex court’s May judgment which had held that remission of the convicts should be considered as per the policy existing at the time of conviction.
“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 Supreme Court’s assistant registrar.

As per procedures, review pleas against top court judgments are decided in chambers by circulation by the judges who were part of the judgment under review.

She has filed a review plea against the May order of the Supreme Court which allowed the Gujarat government to apply the 1992 remission Rules which were in place in the State where the crime was actually committed. The trial of the case took place in Maharashtra.

Bano, besides filing a review petition, also filed a plea challenging the premature release of 11 convicts, who had gang-raped her and murdered her family members during the 2002 Godhra riots.

Bilkis said that even being the victim of the crime, she had no clue about any such process of remission or premature release initiated.

Gujarat’s remission order is a mechanical order of remission by completely ignoring the law’s requirements as consistently laid down, the plea said.

Earlier, some PILs were filed seeking directions to revoke the remission granted to 11 convicts.

The pleas were filed by the National Federation of Indian Women, whose General Secretary is Annie Raja, Member of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) Subhashini Ali, journalist Revati Laul, social activist and professor Roop Rekha Verma, and TMC MP Mahua Moitra.

In its affidavit, the Gujarat government defended remission granted to convicts, saying they completed 14 years of sentence in prison and their “behavior was found to be good”.

The State government said it has considered the cases of all 11 convicts as per the policy of 1992 and remission was granted on August 10, 2022, and the Central government also approved the ore-mature release of convicts.

It is pertinent to note that the remission was not granted under the circular governing grant of remission to prisoners as part of the celebration of “Azadi Ka Amrit Mahotsav”, it has said.

The affidavit stated, “State government considered all the opinions and decided to release 11 prisoners since they have completed 14 years and above in prisons and their behavior was found to be good.”

The government had also questioned the locus standi of petitioners who filed the PIL challenging the decision saying they are outsiders to the case.

The pleas said they have challenged the order of competent authority of the government of Gujarat by way of which 11 persons accused in a set of heinous offenses committed in Gujarat were allowed to walk free on August 15, 2022, pursuant to remission being extended to them.

The remission in this heinous case would be entirely against public interest and would shock the collective public conscience, as also be entirely against the interests of the victim (whose family has publicly made statements worrying for her safety), pleas stated.

The Gujarat government released the 11 convicts, who were sentenced to life imprisonment, on August 15. All the 11 life-term convicts in the case were released as per the remission policy prevalent in Gujarat at the time of their conviction in 2008.

In March 2002 during the post-Godhra riots, Bano was allegedly gang-raped and left to die with 14 members of her family, including her three-year-old daughter. She was five months pregnant when rioters attacked her family in Vadodara. (ANI)

Bilkis’ Rapists Release Case: Justice Bela Recuses From Hearing

By LokMarg 13th December 2022

Justice Bela M Trivedi, Supreme Court judge, on Tuesday, recused herself from hearing the plea filed by Bilkis Bano, challenging the pre-mature release of 11 convicts, who had gang-raped her and murdered her family members during the 2002 Godhra riots.

A bench of Justices Ajay Rastogi and Bela M Trivedi said the matter be posted before another bench.
Besides filing a petition against the per-mature release of convicts, Bano has also filed a review petition seeking its earlier order by which it had asked the Gujarat government to consider the plea for the remission of one of the convicts.

The review petition was also listed for hearing today before Justice Rastogi in his camber.

As per procedures, review pleas against top court judgments are decided in chambers by circulation by the judges who were part of the judgment under review.

She has filed a review plea against the May order of the Supreme Court which allowed the Gujarat government to apply the 1992 remission Rules.

Bilkis said that even being the victim of the crime, she had no clue about any such process of remission or premature release initiated.

Gujarat’s remission order is a mechanical order of remission by completely ignoring the law requirement as consistently laid down, the plea said.

Earlier, some PILs were filed seeking directions to revoke the remission granted to 11 convicts.

Gujarat government in its affidavit had defended remission granted to convicts saying they completed 14 years of sentence in prison and their “behaviour was found to be good”.

It is pertinent to note that the remission was not granted under the circular governing grant of remission to prisoners as part of the celebration of “Azadi Ka Amrit Mahotsav”, it has said.

The government had also questioned the locus standi of petitioners who filed the PIL challenging the decision saying they were outsiders to the case.

The pleas said they have challenged the order of competent authority of the government of Gujarat by way of which 11 persons who were accused in a set of heinous offenses committed in Gujarat were allowed to walk free on August 15, 2022, pursuant to remission being extended to them.

Bilkis Bano Case: Govt Says Convicts Freed For Good Behaviour

By LokMarg 17th October 2022

The Gujarat government on Monday defended before the Supreme Court its decision to grant remission to the 11 convicts in the Bilkis Bano case saying remission was granted as they completed 14 years’ sentence in prison and their “behavior was found to be good”.

The State government said it has considered the cases of all 11 prisoners as per the policy of 1992 and remission was granted on August 10, 2022, and the Central government also approved the pre-mature release of convicts.
It is pertinent to note that the remission was not granted under the circular governing grant of remission to prisoners as part of the celebration of “Azadi Ka Amrit Mahotsav”, it said.

Gujarat government had granted remission to 11 convicts, who had gang-raped Bilkis Bano and murdered her family members during the 2002 Godhra riots.

The State government said that in a circular dated July 9, 1992, it had issued a policy for early releasing those prisoners who have completed 14 years of imprisonment who were imposed life imprisonment punishment.

“State Government is empowered to take the decisions on the proposal of premature release of prisoners under the provision of Section 432 and 433 of CrPC. However, considering the provision of Section 435 CrPC, it is indispensable to obtain the sanction of the government of India in cases in which the investigation of the offense was carried out by a central investigation agency. In the present case, the investigation was carried out by the CBI and the state government has obtained the approval / suitable orders of the government of India,” the affidavit said.

It further stated that all the convict prisoners have completed 14 plus years in prison under life imprisonment and opinions of the concerned authorities have been obtained as per the policy of July 9, 1992, and was submitted to the Ministry of Home Affairs, Government of India on June 28, 2022, and sought the approval of suitable orders of the government of India.

“The government of India conveyed the concurrence /approval of the Central Government under section 435 of the CrPC for premature release of 11 prisoners vide letter dated July 11, 2022,” it added.

The government also questioned the locus standi of petitioners who filed the PIL challenging the decision saying they were outsiders to the case.

The government has said the plea is neither maintainable in law nor tenable on facts, saying that the petitioners as the third parties have no locus to challenge the remission order.

Member of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) Subhashini Ali, journalist Revati Laul, social activist and professor Roop Rekha Verma, and TMC MP Mahua Moitra had filed pleas against the release of convicts.

Earlier, the top court had issued notice to the Gujarat government and convicts and sought their responses on the pleas challenging remission order.

It had also asked the State to file the entire record of the proceedings in the Bilkis Bano case, including the remission order.

The pleas had sought setting aside of order granting remission to 11 convicts and directing their immediate re-arrest.

“It is submitted that it would appear that the constitution of members of the competent authority of the Gujarat government also bore allegiance to a political party, and also was sitting MLAs. As such, it would appear that the competent authority was not an authority that was entirely independent, and one that could independently apply its mind to the facts at hand,” the plea stated.

The plea said they have challenged the order of competent authority of the government of Gujarat by way of which 11 persons who were accused in a set of heinous offenses committed in Gujarat were allowed to walk free on August 15, 2022, pursuant to remission being extended to them.

The petition said the case which led to the conviction of the 11 convicts was investigated by the CBI, accordingly, the grant of remission solely by the Gujarat government without any consultation with the Central government is impermissible in terms of the mandate of Section 435 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973.

Stan Swamy Dies In Jail, Rapists Are Released! Welcome To New India

By LokMarg 30th August 2022

Kavita Srivastava, national secretary of the People’s Union of Civil Liberties, says remission granted to Bilkis Bano’s rapists was premeditated

It is outrageous, both in law and morally. Procedurally, the question of remission should have gone to the Maharashtra State, where the trial happened. The Supreme Court in 2016 had established it in the union of India vs V. Sriharan, which the Gujarat High Court had relied upon, when one of the convicted, Lala Vakil, in the ‘Bilkis Bano gang rape and murder of her family case’, had moved court for premature release.

The SC, in its May order too, had not pronounced the remission — it had only asked the Gujarat government to consider it. The constitution of the committee, with the non-official members being BJP leaders, including elected representatives, further establishes that at every step, the stage was set for the release of the convicted. Also, the permission of the presiding judge, who convicted the accused, was not sought. That should ideally have been the Mumbai trial court which sentenced the 11 accused in 2013.

Since the CBI had investigated the case, it is also clear in law that the Gujarat government should have consulted the central government in Delhi, since its opinion would be mandatory in the remission. Did the Gujarat government seek its opinion? It is time the Union Ministry of Home Affairs clarified this position.

Being a crime against humanity, there was no way that remission should have been granted. The revised guidelines of remission as listed in 2014 are clear on this, but the Gujarat government, again making it easy for the convicts, decided to use the 1992 guidelines.

This aspect is what is chilling; that the survivor of rape and a witness of the murder of 14 people of her family, including three children, including her own 3-year-old daughter, is expected to live everyday with the killers and rapists (confirmed by court) living close by. Did the committee not see this aspect while upholding the remission?

ALSO READ: ‘Bilkis Lives In Fear, Her Rapists Being Lionized’

It is not that the women’s movement does not believe in the remission of those convicted against acts of violence against women. But this is unprecedented as there is no such example for remission for such a heinous crime. If the convicted were medically not well, or facing debilitating illnesses, or, simply could not take care of themselves, as was the case of Father Stan Swamy, there was still a cause for consideration. Father Stan was 83 and an under trial; he was not granted bail and denied even a sipper.

Or consider the case of 93-year-old Dr Habib, arrested on charges of terrorism, who could not even clean himself. The jail manual is clear that if the physical strength of the prisoner is reduced to half of what it was at the time of committing the crime, his case should be considered.

This has raised a new question for the women’s movement; that first we have to struggle for justice at every step, from the lodging of the FIR, fair investigation, filing of a proper charge sheet, and ensuring that good lawyers are available to fight it out in the trial court. The protracted trial itself becomes difficult when the woman has to speak her testimony in front of her own rapists. In the current circumstances, it is a signal that if at all the judgement does come in favour of the woman, it can be done away with a stroke by the executive if it wants to reverse it through remission.

The remission policy was a humanitarian dimension in our Constitution and criminal law, but to convert it for the sake of one party wanting to show that it has met the aspirations of the people by granting remission to Brahmins, as they are ‘sanskaris’, as stated by the MLA of the remission committee, shows that this dimension too can be abused. It adds to a terribly frightening scenario for Muslim women in particular, who are vulnerable to sexual violence in the present majoritarian and xenophobic times, even while the issue of hijab is still unsettled. Indeed, this is a big blow for Muslim women in India.

This example is clear — that in the contemporary, majoritarian times of the re-establishment of the chaturvarna system, through Brahminism, which is integral to the ideology of Hindutva, Muslims, Dalits, adivasis, and all women, will be affected. The Manu law will be re-established. All women will consequently face attacks and women’s rights will be violated encompassing all women across the spectrum.

Savarkar clearly said that the ‘othering’ of the women of the ‘enemy’ – read, the minorities, Muslims, Christians, communists, etc, – is acceptable and part of the struggle to make Bharat a Hindu Rashtra. Well, we are almost there. Indeed, historically, the contestation between communities always happens over women’s bodies! Surely, this is another kind of organised violence.

Bilkis Lives in Fear, Her Rapists Are Being Lionized

By LokMarg 24th August 2022

Pyoli Swatija, a Supreme Court advocate and rights activist, points out how the remission granted to rape convicts in the Bilkis Bano case overlooked legal norms

Being a feminist advocate I do not subscribe to capital punishment for any crime. Reformation as the ultimate aim of legal punishment. But we have to consider the peculiar facts and circumstances of this case: What was the crime, the circumstances surrounding it and how did the law & order machinery and the criminal justice system deal with it?

Also, from the criminological point of view: does the conduct of the convicts show that they have been reformed? This was not just a case of 12 persons (one of whom has subsequently died) murdering seven people (including two children) and raping five women including a pregnant Bilkis Bano. Bilkis should not be seen as just another woman. She is a Muslim. Whatever happened to her and her relatives during the Gujarat pogrom was due to their religious identity and as per law, identity-based rape and murder is considered graver than rape and murder simpliciter.

About the state of law & order at the time of the crime, recall the Supreme Court’s statement: “When Rome was burning, Nero was busy playing his lyre.” Under those circumstances, the apex court had transferred the cases of Bilkis Bano and Zahira Sheikh from Gujarat to Maharashtra and ordered CBI investigation.

Were the legal parameters for granting remission of sentence met in this case? A bare reading of CrPC and that which has been interpreted by a five-judge SC bench in the Union of India Vs V Sriharan case (2014), in a case of remission, the concerned government will be the government in whose state the trial was conducted and the verdict was given, regardless of the place of occurrence of the crime.

It is a settled law that no writ petition under Article 32 is maintainable against the order of a high court in SC. Writ is maintainable only against the state and courts are not covered under the definition of “state” under Article 12. When the remission case came to Gujarat HC, it clearly held that the Gujarat government did not have the power to consider remission since the trial was held in Maharashtra.

Instead of appealing against this order, the convict approached the Supreme Court under Article 32 and the SC reversed the high court judgement in a writ petition. In my opinion, this 14th May 2002 order of the Supreme Court is per incuriam (not paying attention to relevant statutory provision).

We need to take into account two rulings in remission cases. Article 14 mandates that discretion cannot be exercised arbitrarily. In Laxman Naskar Vs Union of India, SC said that a petition for remission will be considered by the state government only after considering the following five parameters: a) What is the impact of the offense on the society at large; b) Probability of crime being repeated; c) Potential of the convict to commit a crime; d) Fruitful purpose of keeping convict in detention; and e) Socio-economic condition of the convict.

Victim Bilkis Bano has said that she has been repeatedly threatened by the offenders, whenever they have come out on parole. Now they are out and being felicitated. I do not know the socio-economic condition of convicts but the rest four points regarding state discretion clearly demonstrate that they are a threat to society and have a probability to repeat the crime. Where is the reformation after all these years? They have walked free like triumphant victors while Bilkis has lived a nomad’s life.

Second, Under CRPC 432(2), the opinion of the trial court judge has to be solicited for remission. Justice Chandrachud and Justice Aniruddh Bose in Ramchandra Vs State of Chhattisgarh have stated that the state’s decision cannot differ from the trial court judge’s recommendation, except when the judge has not given a reasoned opinion and considering the five parameters of the Laxman Naskar case, there was no option for the state government but to differ from the trial court judge.

We came to know from media reports that the trial court judge clearly said that convicts should not be remitted. How the state dealt with his opinion, we do not know. Then again, CrPC 435 says that remission in any crime that has been investigated by CBI should not be granted without the central government’s consultation. Did they consult the central government? Central government should tell what it opined on the point of remission so that we will know if what the PM spoke of about respecting women on August 15 was followed in practice or not.

This is my opinion as per law. As far as morality is concerned, we are nowadays witnessing the felicitation of convicts by society. We can easily see here the legal system is not different from the societal structure. You cannot expect institutions to remain insulated from society when fascism has gripped the minds of the majority our people. As is the society, so is the justice system. Hope remains only in resistance, in speaking truth to power, in standing in solidarity with the brave-heart Bilkis Bano.

Pyoli Swatija is also affiliated with Women Against Sexual Violence and State Repression, an NGO

As told to Abhishek Srivastava