Eleven convicts in the Bilkis Bano rape case, who were ordered by the Supreme Court to return to jail after their remission was quashed, have not yet surrendered. Nine of the convicts are reported to be missing.
While reserving the judgement, the apex court had directed the Centre and the Gujarat government to submit by October 16 the original records related to the remission of sentence of the 11 convicts.
A bench of Justices BV Nagarathna and Ujjal Bhuyan will deliver the verdict in the batch of petitions challenging the early release of the convicts in the Bilkis Bano gang rape case.
The apex court held that the judgement of May 13, 2022 (which directed the Gujarat government to consider remission of convict) was obtained by "playing fraud" on the court and by suppressing material facts.The convicts had not approached the court with clean hands, the apex court observed.