Bilkis Bano case: Supreme Court's Justice Bela M Trivedi rescues herself from hearing

The Supreme Court's (SC) Justice Bela M Trivedi on December 13 rescued herself from hearing Bilkis Bano's plea challenging the remission and release of 11 convicts in the 2002 case related to her gang rape and murder of seven members of her family.

As soon as a bench of Justices Ajay Rastogi and Bela M Trivedi took up the matter for hearing, Justice Rastogi said his sister judge will not like to hear the case.

''List the matter before a bench in which one of us is not a member,'' the bench headed by Justice Rastogi ordered.

However, the bench did not specify any reason as to why Justice Bela M Trivedi rescued herself from hearing the Bilkis Bano case.

Notably, in two separate petitions, Bilkis Bano had challenged the early release of the convicts by the Gujarat government on August 15.

In her petitions, Bilkis Bano had claimed that the state government ignoring the went against the law laid by the apex court and passed a mechanical order completely.

It is worth mentioning that Bilkis Bano was 21  and five-month when she was gang raped during the 2002 Gujarat riots that followed the Godhra train burning incident. Seven members of her family including her three-year-old daughter were killed.

The investigation in the case was handed over to the CBI and the trial was transferred to Maharashtra by the Supreme Court.

On January 21, 2008, a special CBI court in Mumbai had sentenced the 11 to life imprisonment.

Later, the Gujarat government on August 15 had released the 11 convicts, who were sentenced to life imprisonment. All the life-term convicts in the case were released as per the remission policy prevalent in Gujarat at the time of their conviction in 2008.

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