New Delhi: Justice Bela M Trivedi on Tuesday recused herself from hearing the plea filed by Bilkis Bano, in the Supreme Court, challenging the pre-mature release of 11 convicts, who had gang-raped her and murdered her family members during the 2002 Godhra riots.
The bench which includes Justice Ajay Rastogi, who led the Bench, did not specify any reason for the recusal of Justice Trivedi from the Bilkis Bano case.
After recusal of Justice Trivedi, Justice Ajay Rastogi said the writ petition would be returned to the Chief Justice of India to be listed before another Bench of the top court.
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.
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.
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".
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. (with ANI inputs)
