The Supreme Court on Friday, January 19, dismissed the pleas of the 11 convicts in Bilkis Bano case seeking extension of time to surrender before the jail authorities. Earlier, the remission orders of 11 convicts in the case had been nullified by the SC. They were ordered to surrender at the jail by January 21. Citing different reasons, all the convicts sought extension of time. The pleas were heard by a bench of justices BV Nagarathna and Ujjal Bhuyan.

After hearing the pleas, the bench said that there was “no merit” in the reasons cited by the convicts and dismissed their petitions. “The reasons cited by applicants to seek postponement of surrender and report back to jail have no merit inasmuch as those reasons in no way prevent them from complying with our directions. Hence the MAs [Miscellaneous Applications] are dismissed. Pending applications if any also stands disposed of," the bench pronounced.

Eight of the 11 convicts sought six weeks’ extension and the others sought four weeks’ time. The reasons cited by the convicts included their health conditions, bringing the sole caretaker of aged parents, and upcoming harvest season.

On Thursday, when the pleas were filed, Justice Nagarathna said that a bench comprising herself and Justice Ujjal Bhuyan – the same bench that overturned the remission orders – had to be constituted, and issued a direction to the registry to seek orders for the same from the CJI. After the CJI passed the orders, the case was taken up for urgent hearing on Friday.

The SC, on January 8, quashed the remission of sentence and release of the 11 men convcited for the gang rape of Bilkis Bano and the murder of seven of her family members during the Gujarat Riots in 2002. The apex court had said that the state of Gujarat had no jurisdiction to pass the remission orders. The court further pointed out that the petition based on which the SC, in May 2022, directed the Gujarat government to grant remission was “obtained by fraud”.

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