India’s top court has cancelled a 2022 Gujarat government order allowing the premature release of 11 men who were convicted for the gangrape of a pregnant Muslim woman, Bilkis Bano.
The men will have to return to prison in a fortnight, a judge said.
The convicts, who had also murdered 14 members of Bano’s family, were serving life sentences.
They were part of a Hindu mob that attacked Bano and her family during the 2002 anti-Muslim riots in Gujarat.
Their release in August 2022 had caused global outrage.
Many were especially aghast as the convicts, who were serving life sentences for rape and murder, were accorded a heroes’ welcome as they stepped outside the Godhra jail, with relatives giving them sweets and touching their feet to show respect.
Critics had also questioned the timing of the release as the men had walked free on 15 August – the day India was celebrating its independence day and just hours after Prime Minister Narendra Modi had given a speech asking citizens to respect women.
The Supreme Court heard several petitions, including one from Bano, challenging the convicts’ release. In her petition, Bano had said that the premature release of the convicts “has shaken the conscience of the society”. Calling it one of the most gruesome crimes this country has ever seen”, she said the release had left her “shell-shocked and completely numb”.
Reading from the judgement on Monday, the two-judge Supreme Court bench, headed by Justice BV Nagarathna, said the state of Gujarat was “not competent” to pass the remission orders in the case since the men were tried and convicted in a court in the state of Maharashtra.
“The government of the state where the offender is sentenced is the appropriate government to grant remission, not the government of the state where the offence took place,” the order said.
