A bench of Chief Justice DY Chandrachud and justices PS Narasimha and JB Pardiwala assured Bilkis Bano, represented through her lawyer Shobha Gupta, that the new bench will be formed at the earliest against the remission of the sentence of 11 convicts in the 2002 Gujarat riots.
Gupta mentioned the matter for urgent hearing and said a new bench needs to be constituted by the Chief Justice of India as Justice Bela M Trivedi recused from hearing the plea.
CJI Chandrachud said, "I will do so at the earliest. The matter will be listed soon".
Bilkis Bano continues her fight for justice
Earlier, on January 24, the hearing on Bano's plea challenging the remission of sentence of 11 convicts in the gang-rape case by the Gujarat government could not be held in the top court as the judges concerned were hearing a matter related to passive euthanasia as part of a five-judge Constitution bench.
Besides the plea challenging the release of the convicts, the gang-rape survivor had also filed a separate petition seeking a review of the apex court's May 13, 2022 order on a plea by a convict.
In its May 13, 2022, order, the apex court had asked the state government to consider the plea of a convict for premature release in terms of its policy of July 9, 1992 which was applicable on the date of conviction and decide it within a period of two months.
All 11 convicts released
All 11 convicts were granted remission by the Gujarat government and released on August 15, last year. Bano's review plea against the May 13, 2022 order, however, was dismissed by the top court in December last year.
The victim, in her pending writ petition, has said the state government passed a "mechanical order" completely ignoring the requirement of law as laid down by the Supreme Court.
"The en-masse premature release of the convicts in the much talked about case of Bilkis Bano has shaken the conscience of the society and resulted in a number of agitations across the country," she has said in the plea.
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