The state governments petition, filed on Tuesday, demands the removal of adverse comments directed at its conduct concerning the premature release of 11 convicts involved in the Bilkis Bano case. These remarks, it contends, have unfairly tainted its reputation.
In a latest development in the Bilkis Bano case, the Gujarat government has filed a review petition in the Supreme Court seeking certain critical remarks made by it regarding the conduct of the state.
The plea said that the Supreme Court holding the state of Gujarat guilty of “usurpation of power” and “abuse of discretion” in its order “is an error apparent on the face of the record”.
A witness in the Bilkis Bano case, Feroze Ghanchi, has sent an application to the inspector general of prison seeking details of the grounds on which the convict was released from jail. Get the latest updates on this case.
The SC then ordered the convicts, who were released from Godhra district jail on Independence Day in 2022 after being in prison for 14 years, to go back to jail within two weeks. They surrendered before Godhra jail authorities on January 21. Quashing the remission order, the Supreme Court had ruled that the Gujarat government lacked jurisdiction to grant premature release to the convicts as the trial in the 2002 case had been held in Maharashtra.