SC verdict in Bilkis Bano's case exposes misdeeds of home ministry Gujarat govt Kharge

NEW DELHI: Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge on Monday said the Supreme Court verdict in the Bilkis Bano case has exposed the "misdeeds" of the Union home ministry and the Gujarat government and shown how the BJP can keep a woman far from getting justice only for winning elections.

"'Save the daughter' became 'Save the culprit'! The decision of the Supreme Court in the Bilkis Bano case is the restoration of justice. It exposes the misdeeds of the Home Ministry of Modi Government and the Gujarat Government.

"This shows how BJP can keep a woman far away from justice to win elections. Every woman in the country has come to know today how disgusting and corrupt the anti-women mentality of the BJP is. The struggle that Bilkis Bano has done has not gone in vain," Kharge said in a post on X.

In a massive setback to the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government in Gujarat, the apex court on Monday quashed the remission it had granted to 11 convicts in the high-profile gang-rape case of Bilkis Bano and the killing of seven of her family members, and slammed the state for being "complicit" with an accused and abusing its discretion. It ordered all the convicts, who were released prematurely on Independence Day in 2022, to be sent back to jail within two weeks.

Excoriating the Gujarat government, the court said it "usurped" the power of the Maharashtra government to grant remission to the convicts.

It held as nullity the May 13, 2022 judgment of another bench of the apex court, which had directed the Gujarat government to consider the remission applications of the 11 convicts in the case, saying it was obtained by "playing fraud on court".