New Delhi: The Union Home Ministry had approved the premature release of 11 convicts facing life imprisonment in Bilkis Bano. gangrape-cum-murder caseGujarat told the Supreme Court on Monday.
The disclosure came as part of an over 400-page affidavit submitted by the state in response to a Public Interest Litigation (PIL) filed by Subhashini Ali, a member of the Communist Party of India (Marxist), journalist Revathi Laul and Professor Rekha. Verma, against the exemption given to the convicts. 11 were released from jail on August 15 “due to good behaviour”, following which a PIL was filed in the apex court, which had issued Information For reply on August 25 to the convicts and the state.
Bano was gang-raped and fourteen members of her family, including her three-year-old daughter Saleha, were killed by a mob in Gujarat’s Randhikpur village, according to the prosecution in her case, when they fled during the Godhra riots. Were were March 2002. Bano was then 19 years old and five months pregnant at the time.
According to Monday’s affidavit, the approval order for the release of the convicts was informed to the State Home Ministry Department on July 11 by Shri Prakash, Joint Secretary, Union Home Ministry. This came in response to a letter the Union ministry received from the state home department on June 28, seeking approval for the premature release of the convicts. The sanction was sought after the trial was conducted by the central agency, the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI).
The affidavit further revealed that the Superintendent of Police, CBI, Mumbai had opposed the premature release application filed by the convicts in March last year. Also, the sessions judge, who had heard the case and convicted 11 people, did not support his premature release.
But two opinions were given before Supreme Court decision in May this year, which directed the Gujarat government to initiate the exemption process in accordance with its 1992 policy, under which the opinion of the concerned district police officer, district magistrate and chairman of the prisons and advisory board committee is required to decide an exemption application .
According to the affidavit, one convict had applied for premature release in August 2019, while the remaining 10 did so in February last year.
Following the Supreme Court’s May order, the authorities concerned – the superintendent of police, Dahod, Gujarat, the collector and district magistrate of the same district, the superintendent of Godhra sub-jail, the additional director general of police, prisons and reforms administration and the prison advisory committee – of the 10 convicts. Premature release recommended.
However, with respect to one – Radheshyam Bhagwan Das Shah – there were objections from everyone except the prison advisory committee. In his case, the Central Government followed the advice of the Prisons Advisory Committee and approved the premature release.
read also, Personal sense of justice betrayed, writes BJP’s Shazia Ilmi on release of Bilkis Bano convicts
‘PIL not maintainable in criminal case’
Raising a preliminary objection to the sustainability of the PIL, the Gujarat government said that judicial intervention is not required in the present case at the behest of a “so-called public spirited person”.
Being a stranger to the third party, the petitioner, the state said, has no right under the law to challenge the exemption orders passed by the competent authority.
“It is well established that a PIL is not maintainable in a criminal case. The affidavit states that the petitioner is in no way connected with the proceeding which either convicted the accused nor the proceeding which resulted in grant of exemption to the convicts.
The state referred to several judgments of the apex court as precedent and said that the Criminal Procedure Code to question the correctness of grants to a third party or deny sanction to prosecute someone, imposed by the court after routine trial. Prevents questioning of punishment and punishment. , Similarly, it said, no third party can be allowed to question the exemption granted to a convict in a criminal case.
The petitioner said, he is a political functionary and has not justified his right to challenge the exemption granted in the case.
Public interest litigation can be filed only when one’s fundamental right is affected. However, in the said case, the petitioner has not shown how the exemption order of the State Government has made him aggrieved and aggrieved or violated his fundamental rights.
“In the above background, it is the genuine belief of the State Government that the present petition is nothing but an abuse of the jurisdiction of the Public Interest Litigation,” the affidavit said.
The petitioner claimed that he is not an “aggrieved person” but a mere “interloper” who has invoked the jurisdiction of the PIL for “external purpose”.
It denied the allegation that the convicts were granted exemption under a government circular governing the grant of remission to prisoners as part of the “Azadi Ka Amrit Mahotsav” celebrations.
(Edited by Polomi Banerjee)