Bilkis Bano Convict Moves Supreme Court Against Judgment Cancelling Remission

New Delhi: Radheshyam Bhagwandas Shah, one of the convicts in the Bilkis Bano gangrape case, has moved a petition before Supreme Court challenging the January 8 judgment which led to the cancellation of his and 10 others’ premature release from prison.

Radheshyam and 10 other life-term convicts had to surrender at Godhra sub-jail on January 21 after the apex court annulled the remission and early release that had been granted to them by the Gujarat government on August 15, 2022.

In his plea, Radheshyam said that re-imprisonment of the 11 released convicts was judicially improper.

The judgment delivered by Justices BV Nagarathna and Ujjal Bhuyan was “not only judicial impropriety but creates uncertainty and chaos as to which precedence of law has to be applied in future,” the petition stated, Bar and Bench reported.

Radheshyam contented that it was incorrect in law for the two-judge bench to overrule a judgment by another two-judge Supreme Court bench of Justices Ajay Rastogi and Vikram Nath.

The Justice Rastogi-led bench had held in May 2022 that the state of Gujarat was the appropriate government to decide on remission applications filed by rape convicts in the Bilkis Bano case.

The Gujarat government thereafter allowed the remission applications, which was then challenged before the Supreme Court.