By Jose Kavi
New Delhi, Jan 8, 2023: A sense of joy and hope spread across activists and women groups in India January 8 after the Supreme Court set aside the Gujarat government’s premature release of 11 convicted in a gangrape case.
The apex court termed the Gujarat government order a “fraud act” and asked the convicts to surrender in two weeks and return to jail.
“The verdict brings to the entire nation a silver line of hope in the judiciary. People’s trust in the judiciary increased,” says Sister Jessy Kurian, a lawyer who was present when the apex court pronounced its decision.
Sounding the same sentiments, Teesta Setalvad, secretary of the Citizens for Justice and Peace that works for the victims of 2002 Gujarat riots, says the apex court has “re-validated the ordinary citizens’ faith in its commitment to the rule of law, the Indian Constitution.”
She noted that the court quashed the Gujarat government’s “brazen conduct” in passing the remission orders, set aside the Gujarat High Court judgement that endorsed the government decision and turned down the federal home ministry’s role in allowing convicts to walk free.
“For some of us who have been brutally targeted for fighting for justice for the survivors of 2002, this verdict reaffirms justice and the truth of what transpired in those dark days of 2002,” Setalvad told Matters India.
Setalvad was arrested in June 2022 by the Anti-Terrorism Squad of Gujarat Police for allegedly conspiring to implicate the state government functionaries in the 2002 Riots. Amnesty International India termed the arrest as a ‘direct reprisal’ against human rights activists.
Jesuit Father Cedric Prakash, internationally renowned activist and writer who too has worked for the Gujarat survivors, finds the verdict “a major triumph for truth and justice.”
The “landmark and insightful verdict,” he adds, will have much bearing on the interference of the government in the judicial process. It “will surely restore the faith of the common person, that there is still that glimmer of hope with and in the apex court and that all is still not lost for truth and justice in democratic India,” he told Matters India.
Presentation Sister Dorothy Fernandes, national secretary of the Forum of Religious for Justice and Peace, sounding pleasantly surprised, said the apex court verdict is a “New Year gift for Bilkis Bano.”
Bilkis Bano, who was 21 and five-month pregnant during the 2002 Gujarat riots, was gang-raped. Her mother and sister were also raped, seven members of her family, including her three-year-old daughter, were killed in front of her.
In 2008, a special Central Bureau of Investigation court sentenced the 11 accused to life imprisonment. The same was subsequently upheld by the Bombay high court in 2017.
The Gujarat government’s remission order came on Independence Day in 2022, stating that it allowed the remission based on the 1992 policy. The federal government approved the remission.
The Supreme Court bench of Justices B V Nagarathna and Ujjal Bhuyan noted that the trial was transferred to Maharashtra, which is the “appropriate government” to grant remission.
“The well deserved (verdict) that has revived our faith and hope in the judicial system at a time we almost lost hope,” Sister Fernandes told Matters India.
Raynah Braganza Passanha, national convener of the Indian Christian Women Movement, says her organization applauds Bilkis Bano’s determination and grit that was consistently and completely backed by women’s groups and networks in India.
She says the networks have played a big role in publicizing the injustice in the remission granted to the convicted.
“We acknowledge the role of the Chief Justice of India in admitting the case and allowing legal reason to name the error of the Gujarat judgment, albeit delayed, thereby creating an avenue to address the double injustice Bilkis Bano was subjected to,” said the organization with members from all major Christian denominations in the country.
She said her movement looked forward “to the legal system functioning as it is meant to in protecting the rights of the aggrieved and bringing the accused perpetrators to justice.”
Father Prakash sees the Bilkis Bano case as textbook one to show how Mahatma Gandhi’s twin doctrine of satyagraha’ and ‘ahimsa’ was “meticulously destroyed” to mainstream the hate and violence of the Hindu radical groups.
He also points out that the verdict has come when the Gujarat government prepares for “the Vibrant Gujarat Summit” to showcase it as India’s leading state.
“Sadly it is a failed state on all parameters and with this judgement the government of Gujarat must hang its head down in shame,” Father Prakash asserted.
The biggest joke is nine out of the eleven rape-convicts are not traceable, though there is police posting outside their homes! What are they guarding against? It is the Inquisitive Press?
Will the bench of Justice Ajay Rastogi (now retired) and Justice Vikram Nath be taken to task for committing a faux pas of not going in-depth (termed by Supreme Court “fraud”) before issuing directions (on May 13, 2022) on the Gujarat government to consider Radheshyam Shah’s (one of the 11 convicts) plea for release, which triggered the release of the 11 convicts?
It would be naive to assume that the Gujarat government released the 11 gang-rape convicts without green signal from the Union Home Ministry.
It may be noted that the current ruling dispensations of Gujarat and Maharashtra governments are on the same wavelength and it would be a great victory for justice if the latter government opines otherwise.
As of now, a great decision by the Supreme Court of India which set aside the Gujarat government’s premature release of 11 convicted in Bilkis Bano gangrape case. The million dollar question is whose responsibility it is to bring the 11 back to jail – the Gujarat government which merrily released them or the Maharashtra Government? Where are the eleven convicts who were garlanded and felicitated? Has a lookout notice been served by the Supreme Court to haul them back to jail? It will only be “a major triumph for truth and justice” if the 11 rape convicts who were released for their “good behaviour” can be traced out. A lot of reverse documentation including erasure of “good behaviour” has to be done by the Maharashtra High Court. The question is why it kept quiet when they were released by the Gujarat Government on 15th August 2022, the very day when PM espoused the cause of Women Empowerment from the Red Fort.