For the petitioners who moved the Supreme Court against the Gujarat government’s premature release of the 11 convicts jailed for gang-rape and multiple murders in the Bilkis Bano case, it was Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Independence Day speech in 2022 that proved the last straw.

Celebrating 75 years of Independence, Modi invoked woman power or ‘nari shakti‘ from the Red Fort and called for an end to “every behaviour, culture that humiliates and demeans women.”

Just then, the convicts, who had been sentenced to life for gang-raping a pregnant Bilkis Bano, members of her family, and also murdering at least 14 of them in 2002 while the Gujarat riots were on, walked out of Godhra sub-jail.

“On August 15, when the prime minister was talking about women’s security and honouring women, the Gujarat government gave the remission order and released them (the convicts). I then heard that Bilkis made a statement saying ‘is this the end of justice?’ That really shook me and many like me who thought, ‘What is the use of us being around?’,” said CPI(M) leader and activist Subhashini Ali to The Wire.

Ali, former professor Roop Rekha Verma and journalist Revati Laul jointly filed a petition in the Supreme Court challenging the Gujarat government’s remission and release order.

“We were trying to think of what we could do and it was very fortunate that lawyers like Kapil Sibal and Aparna Bhatt and others came forward,” said Ali.

On January 8, the Supreme Court quashed the government’s release order, said that the Gujarat government did not have the power to grant such a release to the convicts and directed them to return to prison within two weeks. The court also said that the Gujarat government had “acted in complicity” with the convicts. The bench of Justices B.V. Nagarathna and Ujjwal Bhuyan also held that the judgement of May 13, 2022, by a bench of Justices Ajay Rastogi and Vikram Nath, which directed the Gujarat government to consider remission, “a nullity” as it was obtained by “playing fraud on the court”.

‘Cruel joke on the nation’

Roop Rekha Verma, former professor at Lucknow University who was in Delhi when the news of the remission orders came out said that the prime minister’s speech was “ a cruel joke on the nation”.

“The Prime Minister who was crying about violence on women in his Independence Day speech had already given permission for remission. That was a cruel joke on the nation,” she said to The Wire.

Verma said that she then discussed the developments with some of her friends and associates, and the “idea cropped up collectively” to explore legal options.

“Although by that time we had enough examples to not look at courts with much hope, but there was no other door to knock on, apart from a petition in the Supreme Court,” she said.

Journalist Revati Laul came onboard to become a petitioner in the case when she was told that they were looking for a third woman petitioner.

“They were looking for a third woman petitioner who had some locus standi in the matter. I was asked if I would like to be the third petitioner. I had written the book Anatomy of Hate which is based on the Gujarat riots and have been based in Gujarat for a while during and after the riots. I feel strongly about this case and I agreed,” she said to The Wire.

The petitioners said that after they filed their petition, they found out that another PIL had been filed by now expelled Trinamool Congress Lok Sabha MP Mahua Moitra through lawyer Indira Jaising. Subsequently another petition was filed by former IPS officer Meeran Chadha Borwankar in September 2022. Her group also included petitioners Jagdeep Chokhar and Madhu Bhandari.

Borwankar said that she decided to “step in” and file a case when she realised that Bano herself had not challenged the remission orders.

“I was following the case closely and decided to step in when I realised that Bilkis Bano had not challenged the remission orders. But she did so later,” she said.

‘Why should Bilkis have to come up?’

Bano moved the apex court against the remission orders only in November, 2022 following a petition filed by one of the convicts questioning the maintainability of these petitions saying the petitioners have no locus standi and are “complete strangers” in the matter.

Speaking to The Wire, her lawyer for the past two decades, Shobha Gupta said that Bano had to become a petitioner after the maintainability of these petitions were challenged in court.

“I was personally very clear, ‘Why should she alone have to come up?’ It was not an individual crime. It was a crime against humanity and a barbaric nature of crime. It is for the society to decide. That is why she did not take the plunge to begin with and I am glad she took her time to decide. In the meantime the right spirited persons challenged (the remission order) within no time and the court issued a notice in the PIL petitions on August 25 (2022).”

Gupta said that the remission orders had come as “rude shock” to Bano.

“Nobody could think this could happen so secretively. Suddenly you find that your rapists are roaming around being honoured and felicitated. The immediate reaction was that this was wrong. It has to be objected to but it is always tough to restart it (the fight) and how many times and for how long?”

Bano moved the apex court against the remission orders only in November, 2022 following a petition filed by one of the convicts questioning the maintainability of these petitions saying the petitioners have no locus standi and are “complete strangers” in the matter.

Speaking to The Wire, her lawyer for the past two decades, Shobha Gupta said that Bano had to become a petitioner after the maintainability of these petitions were challenged in court.

“I was personally very clear, ‘Why should she alone have to come up?’ It was not an individual crime. It was a crime against humanity and a barbaric nature of crime. It is for the society to decide. That is why she did not take the plunge to begin with and I am glad she took her time to decide. In the meantime the right spirited persons challenged (the remission order) within no time and the court issued a notice in the PIL petitions on August 25 (2022).”

Gupta said that the remission orders had come as “rude shock” to Bano.

“Nobody could think this could happen so secretively. Suddenly you find that your rapists are roaming around being honoured and felicitated. The immediate reaction was that this was wrong. It has to be objected to but it is always tough to restart it (the fight) and how many times and for how long?”

‘Milestone on the road to justice’

With the 11 convicts now being directed by the court to return to jail, Jaising who represented Moitra said that the judgement was extraordinary as the Supreme Court “very rarely declares its own judgement as null and void.”

“It also gives you a roadmap to justice. I know they will apply to Maharashtra. We have to wait and see what happens in the future but the judgement is a milestone on the journey to justice,” she said.

According to Verma, the judgement comes at a time when faith in the Supreme Court has been low.

“This verdict is precious to me in many ways. When our faith in the Supreme Court and other courts was sagging low at that time such a judgement uplifts our faith in courts at least partially. It means to me not only individually but to the country as well that when judges are under a lot of pressure, a judgement can come that goes strictly by law but also puts some governments in the dock and says plainly that the state was hand in glove in complicity with the criminals.

“It shows that there are a few judges who don’t serve as the staff of the government but will do what is expected of them and this expectation being fulfilled means everything in a democracy that we have a door to knock on and we will get justice,” she said.

Laul said that the judgement comes as a “clear streak of light” in dark times.

“This (judgement) is a very clear streak of light. We must always use this streak of light to undo the dark and that requires a lot of work. We need to break the word Bilkis down and we as citizens need to ask ourselves – what is the institutional failure that allowed Bilkis’s rape to become a public performance? What have we done as citizens to allow this monstrosity? It is not the optics but it is about what you and I are doing everyday that enables or disables this. We should not stop asking ourselves this question because otherwise we will be reducing this very important day to a pantomime,” she said.

Ali said that the larger message behind this judgement is to look beyond this as a “women’s issue.”

“Please do not think of this as a woman’s fight. It is a fight to save this country from gross injustice and the Constitution being replaced by Manusmriti in every which way,” she said.

Borwankar said that while it took a group of largely women to bring justice to Bano, the judgement shows that the “state cannot be partisan in its conduct.”

‘Not a lone battle’

In her first public statement after the judgement issued through Gupta on Monday, Bano said that she can “breathe again”. She also thanked Gupta for never “allowing her to lose faith in the idea of justice.”

Gupta said that she had not charged a penny in the matter right from when she was brought in by the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) as a lawyer in the case following the riots in 2002.

“If you have the capacity as a lawyer why won’t you do this for society? I was just five years into the profession. I was told by the NHRC that we have enough funds to pay lawyers but I said no not in this matter not even for paperwork. You have a job in society. It is something for the society you have to do. We are all a part of the society. She was a victim who was a direct sufferer of the riots.

“But each one of us suffered through the case. Like in Nirbhaya each one of us suffered as we witnessed it. Now with her case we are all associated because we have all seen the case. I stood by her because we want to tell her and society that you are not alone and this is not a lone battle,” she said.