Gujarat govt went out of the way to defend 11 convicts in Bilkis Bano rape case: AIDWA

Counterview Desk

The All India Democratic Women’s Association (AIDWA), even as welcoming the Supreme Court order rejecting the remission granted by the Gujarat government to 11 convicts of the Bilkis Bano case, has said that has said that "normally remission is not granted in grievous offences."

Surprisingly, even during their 14 year conviction the convicts had repeatedly got parole during their conviction, with Bilkis Bano reporting how she was threatened with her life by the convicts whenever they were out on parole.

Text:

AIDWA welcomes the Supreme Court judgement which quashes the Gujarat government’s decision to allow premature release of the convicts in the Bilkis Bano gang rape which had happened during the Gujarat riots of 2002. The convicts had been released by the Gujarat Government after 14 years of imprisonment.

A bench of Justices BV Nagarathna and Ujjal Bhuyan held that the eleven convicts should go back to jail within two weeks and should continue to be in jail.

The Court reportedly said that according to law, the Gujarat government was not empowered to pass the remission order since the appropriate government entitled to pass orders of remission was the government of Maharashtra where the trial had taken place and the sentence had been pronounced.

The Court strongly criticized the convict Radhyesham, for playing a fraud upon the Supreme Court by suppressing material facts and getting a favourable order from the top court in May 2022 which eventually led to the release of all the eleven convicts. The Court stated that the Gujarat High Court had already dismissed the Petition of Radheshyam and said that only the Maharashtra Government could decide the plea on remission.

However, the said person had not appealed from this Judgement but instead hiding this fact had come to the Supreme Court in a Writ Petition under Article 32. Radheshyam had therefore played a fraud on the Court.

The Court also criticized the Gujarat government for not filing a review plea against the May 2022 judgement and instead being complicit and acting in tandem with the convicts and usurping the Maharashtra government’s Jurisdiction to grant remission to convicts.

Radheshyam had also apparently filed a remission application in Maharashtra and the presiding judge of the trial Court and DGP Maharashtra had given their opinion against it.

Several petitions had been filed against the outrageous remissions granted by the BJP Gujarat government in this heinous case of fang-rape during the Gujarat riots. It was also the opinion of legal scholars and others that the case was not a fit one for remission, as normally remission is not granted in such grievous offences. Surprisingly the convicts had repeatedly got parole during their conviction. Bilkis Bano had in fact reported how she was threatened with her life by the convicts whenever they were out on parole.

-- PK Sreemathi, President; Mariam Dhawale, General Secretary; Kirti Singh, Legal Advisor

Comments

The golden crop: How turmeric is transforming women's lives in tribal India

By Vikas Meshram* When the lush green fields of turmeric sway in the tribal belt of southern Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, and Gujarat, it is not merely a spice crop — it is the golden glow of self-reliance. In villages where even basic spices once had to be bought from the market, the very soil today is yielding a prosperity that has transformed the lives of thousands of families. At the heart of this transformation is the initiative of Vaagdhara, which has linked turmeric with livelihoods, nutrition, and village self-governance — gram swaraj.

Swami Vivekananda's views on caste and sexuality were 'painfully' regressive

By Bhaskar Sur* Swami Vivekananda now belongs more to the modern Hindu mythology than reality. It makes a daunting job to discover the real human being who knew unemployment, humiliation of losing a teaching job for 'incompetence', longed in vain for the bliss of a happy conjugal life only to suffer the consequent frustration.

Love letters in a lifelong war: Babusha Kohli’s resistance in verse

By Ravi Ranjan* “War does not determine who is right—only who is left.” Bertrand Russell’s words echo hauntingly in our times, and few contemporary Hindi poets embody this truth as profoundly as Babusha Kohli. Emerging from Jabalpur, Madhya Pradesh, Kohli has carved a unique space in literature by weaving together tenderness, protest, and philosophy across poetry, prose, and cinema. Her work is not merely artistic expression—it is resistance, refuge, and a call for peace.

Authoritarian destruction of the public sphere in Ecuador: Trumpism in action?

By Pilar Troya Fernández The situation in Ecuador under Daniel Noboa's government is one of authoritarianism advancing on several fronts simultaneously to consolidate neoliberalism and total submission to the US international agenda. These are not isolated measures, but rather a coordinated strategy that combines job insecurity, the dismantling of the welfare state, unrestricted access to mining, the continuation of oil exploitation without environmental considerations, the centralization of power through the financial suffocation of local governments, and the systematic criminalization of all forms of opposition and popular organization.

Echoes of Vietnam and Chile: The devastating cost of the I-A Axis in Iran

By Ram Puniyani The recent joint military actions by Israel and the United States against Iran have been devastating. Like all wars, this conflict is brutal to its core, leaving a trail of human suffering in its wake. The stated pretext for this aggression—the brutality of the Ayatollah Khamenei regime and its nuclear ambitions—clashes sharply with the reality of the diplomatic landscape. Iran had expressed a willingness to remain at the negotiating table, signaling a readiness to concede points emerging from dialogue.

Buddhist shrines were 'massively destroyed' by Brahmanical rulers: Historian DN Jha

Nalanda mahavihara By Rajiv Shah Prominent historian DN Jha, an expert in India's ancient and medieval past, in his new book , "Against the Grain: Notes on Identity, Intolerance and History", in a sharp critique of "Hindutva ideologues", who look at the ancient period of Indian history as "a golden age marked by social harmony, devoid of any religious violence", has said, "Demolition and desecration of rival religious establishments, and the appropriation of their idols, was not uncommon in India before the advent of Islam".

False claim? What Venezuela is witnessing is not surrender but a tactical retreat

By Manolo De Los Santos The early morning hours of January 3, 2026, marked an inflection point in Venezuela and Latin America’s centuries-long struggle for self-determination and independence. Operation Absolute Resolve, ordered by the Trump administration, constituted the most brutal and direct military assault on a sovereign state in the region in recent memory. In a shocking operation that left hundreds dead, President Nicolás Maduro and First Lady Cilia Flores were illegally kidnapped from Venezuelan soil and transported to the United States, where they now face fabricated charges in a New York federal detention facility. In the two months since this act of war, a torrent of speculation has emerged from so-called experts and pundits across the political spectrum. This has followed three main lines: One . The operation’s success indicated treason at the highest levels of the Bolivarian Revolution. Two . Acting President Delcy Rodríguez and the remaining leadership have abandone...

The price of silence: Why Modi won’t follow Shastri, appeal for sacrifice

By Arundhati Dhuru, Sandeep Pandey* In 1965, as India grappled with war and a crippling food crisis, Prime Minister Lal Bahadur Shastri faced a United States that used wheat shipments under the PL-480 agreement as a lever to dictate Indian foreign policy. Shastri’s response remains legendary: he appealed to the nation to skip one meal a day. Millions of middle-class households complied, choosing temporary hunger over the sacrifice of national dignity. Today, India faces a modern equivalent in the energy sector, yet the leadership’s response stands in stark contrast to that era of self-reliance.

Was Netaji forced to alter face, die in obscurity in USSR in 1975? Was he so meek?

By Rajiv Shah This should sound almost hilarious. Not only did Subhas Chandra Bose not die in a plane crash in Taipei, nor was he the mysterious Gumnami Baba who reportedly passed away on 16 September 1985 in Ayodhya, but we are now told that he actually died in 1975—date unknown—“in oblivion” somewhere in the former Soviet Union. Which city? Moscow? No one seems to know.

Search This Blog