The Supreme Court has been approached by a gangrape convict in the Bilkis Bano case who has challenged the judgement of January 8 where the Top court has cancelled the remission granted to him and others convicted in the case by the Gujarat government.
The convict has approached by Apex Court through advocate Pashupati Nath Razdan,who argued that division bench order was overruled by the top court in its January 8 verdict, which is not permissible.
The bench of Justice BV Nagarathna and Justice Ujjal Bhuyan in the January 8 judgment, had said that that the remission policy applicable to the rape convicts in the Bilkis Bano case was the remission policy in Maharashtra (where the rape case trial took place) and not that of the Gujarat government.
The Apex Court stated that the State of Gujarat had no authority to apply its remission policy to the rape convicts in this case.
The above finding has now been questioned by Ramesh Chandana in his plea that reads that whether the offence having taken place in Gujarat, the mere fact of transfer would deprive the parties of benefit of the Gujarat policy laying down 14 years as criteria for becoming eligible for grant of remission which is beneficial for the Petitioner and while it was 28 years as per Maharashtra policy which was prejudicial for him.
May 2022 Supreme Court judgment was also highlighted by the convict in which the Supreme Court had earlier paved way for the early release of the convicts.
This 2022 judgment had concluded that an application of remission should be considered in line with the policy of the State where the crime was committed (Gujarat, in this case) and not where the trial was held.
It is very important to note that the top court had later found that the January 8 judgment had no binding force since the convict (Radheshyam Bhagwandas) who approached the Supreme Court in the matter had suppressed material facts.