Bilkis Bano’s fight for justice gets a fillip

Julio Ribeiro

THE 2022 order of the Gujarat government on the premature release of convicts in the Bilkis Bano case was shot down by the Supreme Court recently. A pregnant Bilkis was gangraped and seven of her family members murdered during the 2002 anti-Muslim pogrom in the BJP-ruled state. It was one of the most diabolical crimes fuelled by hate and revenge.

There are many good judges whom the country can be proud of. Justice Nagarathna, elevated to the apex court from the Karnataka HC, is one outstanding example.

The crime was committed in Dahod district. On the appeal of several activists, the trial was shifted by the Supreme Court from Gujarat to Maharashtra. The court of the Sessions Judge, Mumbai, convicted the accused and sentenced them to life imprisonment. Since the convicts were lodged in Gujarat’s jails, they appeared to have been handled with kid gloves, as can be deduced from the days each of them spent out of jail on parole or furlough, far more than the period stipulated in the Jail Manual.

The convicts were set free on August 15, 2022, a few months before the Gujarat Assembly elections. The partisan action of the ruling party may have helped it garner many more votes than it would have expected, but this troubled the conscience of a great number of right-thinking citizens, mainly women.

One of the women who felt acute revulsion at the government’s decision was my former IPS colleague Meeran Chadha Borwankar, whom I have always admired for her principled adherence to the values of truth and justice. She joined four other women to challenge the decision in the Supreme Court. Meeran rose by many notches in my estimation.

The Supreme Court Bench of Justices BV Nagarathna and Ujjal Bhuyan gave its verdict earlier this month. It was a verdict that restored my faith in the country’s judiciary. A grave crime against women as well as humanity had been committed by hate-filled bigots. The norm laid down by the International Court of Justice prescribed a minimum of 30 years in jail for any crime against humanity. If anyone deserved to be put behind bars for that length of time, it was this gang of rapists and murderers.

Our laws do not prescribe 30 years behind bars for crimes against humanity. In fact, such crimes are not specifically described or even alluded to in our laws. When the Union government recently introduced legislation replacing the IPC, CrPC and the Indian Evidence Act, it made the grant of bail difficult for ‘anti-national’ activities. No importance was given to crimes against humanity that provoke outrage not only in India but also in most other parts of the world.

The Prime Minister has righty included women among the four ‘castes’ about which he says he is concerned. Farmers, the youth and the poor are the others. Muslim women are taken into consideration when Islamic practices such as ‘triple talaq’ are questioned. However, when Muslim women are raped or their family members killed, like they were in Dahod in 2002, pretty slogans like ‘Sabka Saath, Sabka Vikas’ are forgotten. This does not speak well about our civilisation and our country. Course correction is called for.

While hearing a matter recently, the Supreme Court had remarked that it was puzzled by some of the decisions of the Gujarat High Court. That being so, it is incumbent on our judiciary to ponder over its duty to adhere to truth and deliver justice, whatever may be the pressures. Good judges learn to isolate themselves from such pressures. And there are many good judges whom the country can be proud of. Justice Nagarathna, elevated to the apex court from the Karnataka High Court, is one outstanding example.

Political parties in power are known to support their followers when they get into trouble with the law. But in the Bilkis case, the crimes were positively barbaric and could never be condoned. Yet, as the judges observed, there was an element of collusion between the government and the perpetrators. The appellant had hidden facts from the SC Bench which originally dealt with his appeal. The Gujarat government did not bother to inform the new Bench that the High Court had advised the appellant to approach the Maharashtra government, which had the jurisdiction to decide his appeal.

The Gujarat government went ahead with the remission for rapists and murderers despite knowing that it was not competent to decide the matter and that the order from the previous Bench of the apex court was obtained after concealing vital information relevant to the case. The entire episode is sordid and smacks of a distorted sense of morality, not expected of a nation like ours, which descended from an ancient civilisation.

The Supreme Court’s original Bench had ordered the state government to pay Bilkis Rs 50 lakh as compensation for the trauma she had suffered. It had also told the government to give her a job. The state authorities informed the court in October 2020 that it had made the payment and given a job to Bilkis, but she claimed that the government had only paid lip service about compliance with the court’s order. This shows the animosity that the authorities in Gujarat harbour for women from the minority community.

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