Stung by the adverse remarks passed against it, the Gujarat government moved a review petition in the Supreme Court on Tuesday to reconsider the comments in the Bilkis Bano case judgment.
A Bench led by Justice B.V. Nagarathna had quashed the State’s move to remit the life sentence of the 11 convicts accused of gangrape and murder in the case. The court, in its judgment, had directed the men to surrender.
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The January 8 verdict had also made scathing remarks about the Gujarat government’s usurpation of authority to release the convicts prematurely.
“The extreme observation made by this court that the State of Gujarat ‘acted in tandem and was complicit with [one of the] accused’ is not only highly unwarranted and against the record of the case but has caused serious prejudice to the State of Gujarat,” the review petition said.
The court had concluded that Gujarat had no jurisdiction to release the convicts. The authority to remit the sentences had rested solely with Maharashtra, to where the case was transferred and where the convicts were tried and sentenced to life imprisonment.
