The alacrity with which the BJP government of Gujarat state accepted a report of the Sentences Review Board (SRB) packed with state government officials including two BJP MLAs (members of legislative assembly), to release 11 convicted criminals serving life sentences for gang-rape of survivor Bilkis Bano, and the daylight murder of her three-yearold daughter and 14 relatives during communal riots that swept the state in 2002, has shocked the conscience of right-thinking members of society countrywide.

The backdrop of this brazen release of unforgiveable convicts is widespread communal riots that broke out in Gujarat in 2002, after a train compartment with 58 Hindu devotees returning to Ahmedabad from the holy city of Ayodhya was allegedly set on fire by a mob of Muslim zealots when it halted in the town of Godhra on February 27. All the devotees were charred to death. Following this atrocity, widespread anti-Muslim riots broke out across the state. According to official data, in the months that followed 1,044 people were killed and 2,500 injured. Of the dead, 790 were Muslim and 254 Hindu.

On February 28, Bilkis Bano and her family of 18 including women and children fearing loot and arson fled her village in Dahod district for a relief camp in Godhra. En route, on March 3, they were attacked by a rampaging mob of 25-30 including the 11 convicts who gang-raped her, murdered — yes murdered — her three-and-half-yearold daughter and 14 of their party.

Despite every official discouragement and life threats, Bilkis Bano fought her case all the way up to the Supreme Court which ordered the accused to be tried by a special CBI court constituted in the neighbouring state of Maharashtra. In January 2008, the special court found 11 guilty and sentenced them to life imprisonment.

On August 15, 2022 the life sentences of the convicts were abrogated by the Gujarat state government on the recommendation of the Sentences Review Board which opined that the convicts had served jail terms of more than 14 years during which they had exhibited good conduct, itself a contestable conclusion.

However, this justification is untenable because under law, remission of sentence for convicts incarcerated for over 14 years is not automatic. In a 2012 judgement, the Supreme Court ruled that state governments are obliged to carefully weigh the nature of crime and its impact on society and investigate every convict’s conduct during imprisonment prior to granting pardon. In Bilkis Bano’s case, the nature of the crime was horrific as acknowledged by revised remission guidelines issued in 2014.

The release of all 11 convicts simultaneously is clear proof of nonapplication of mind by SRB and the BJP Gujarat state government. In the circumstances, the Supreme Court should immediately nullify the release order of the Gujarat government. A well known maxim of law is that justice must not only be done, but also seen to be done.