Rectify 'horrendously wrong decision' of remission in Bilkis Bano case: 134 ex-bureaucrats to CJI
New Delhi, Aug 27: More than 130 former civil servants on Saturday wrote an open letter to the Chief Justice of India (CJI) against the premature release of 11 men who were jailed in the gangrape case of Bilkis Bano and requested him to rectify this "horrendously wrong decision".
They asked the CJI to rescind the order of remission passed by the Gujarat government and send the 11 persons convicted of gangrape and murder back to jail to serve out their life sentence.
"Like the overwhelming majority of people in our country, we are aghast at what happened in Gujarat a few days ago, on the 75th anniversary of India's Independence, it said.
Former Lieutenant Governor of Delhi Najeeb Jung, former Cabinet Secretary K M Chandrasekhar, former foreign secretaries Shivshankar Menon and Sujatha Singh and former Home Secretary G K Pillai were among the 134 signatories to the letter, written under the aegis of the Constitutional Conduct Group.
Justice Uday Umesh Lalit was sworn in as the 49th Chief Justice of India on Saturday.
On August 25, the Supreme Court issued notice to the Centre and the Gujarat government on a plea challenging the release of the 11 convicts and posted the matter for hearing after two weeks.
The former civil servants said the release of the convicts has "outraged the nation".
"We write to you because we are deeply distressed by this decision of the government of Gujarat and because we believe that it is only the Supreme Court which has the prime jurisdiction, and hence the responsibility, to rectify this horrendously wrong decision," the letter read.
Bilkis Bano was 21 years old and five months pregnant when she was gangraped while fleeing the riots that broke out after the Godhra train burning in 2002. Her three-year-old daughter was among the seven killed.
In January 2008, a special CBI court in Mumbai sentenced the 11 to life imprisonment on charges of gangrape and murder of seven members of Bilkis Bano's family. Their conviction was later upheld by the Bombay High Court and the Supreme Court.
The former civil servants wrote, "The case was a rare one because not only were the rapists and murderers punished, but so, too, were the policemen and doctors who tried to tamper with and erase the evidence to protect the accused and cover up the crime."
After serving 15 years in jail, one of the accused, Radheshyam Shah, approached the Supreme Court with a plea for his premature release, the letter said.
The Gujarat High Court which had earlier been approached for this purpose had dismissed his plea while observing that the "appropriate government" to decide the case was that of Maharashtra and not Gujarat, it said.
Radheshyam Shah then filed a plea in the Supreme Court.
The Supreme Court, on Radheshyam Shah's plea, also directed that the application for premature release be considered by the Gujarat government within two months, and in terms of its policy dated 9 July 1992, it said.
"We are puzzled about why the Supreme Court saw the matter as so urgent that a decision had to be taken within two months, as also by the Supreme Court ordering that the case should be examined as per Gujarat's 1992 remission policy and not its current one, the letter said.
"In view of these glaring deviations from established law, departure from government policy and propriety, and the chilling impact that this release will have, not just on Bilkis Bano and her family and supporters, but also on the safety of all women in India, especially those who belong to minority and vulnerable communities, we urge you to rescind the order of remission passed by the Gujarat government and send the 11 persons convicted of gangrape and murder back to jail to serve out their life sentence, they wrote.
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2 Indian nationals part of crew of luxury cruise ship that reported hantavirus outbreak
London (PTI): At least two Indian nationals are part of the crew of the Dutch vessel MV Hondius which reported a hantavirus outbreak with five confirmed cases and three deaths so far, according to the BBC.
The luxury cruise ship, operated by Oceanwide Expeditions, began its journey on April 1 from Argentina’s Ushuaia and is expected to arrive in Spain’s Canary Islands on May 10.
About 150 passengers and crew from 28 countries were initially aboard the luxury cruise, but dozens disembarked on the island of St Helena on April 24, according to the report.
Of the 28 nationalities onboard, 38 are from the Philippines, 31 from the UK, 23 from the US, 16 from the Netherlands, 14 from Spain, nine from Germany, six from Canada, and two crew members from India, among others, the BBC reported.
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The World Health Organization said on Thursday that five of the eight suspected hantavirus cases had been confirmed.
A 69-year-old Dutch woman, confirmed to have the virus, has died; her Dutch husband and a German woman were also among the fatalities. Their cases are being investigated.
The UN health agency has said the outbreak is not the start of a pandemic.
Maria van Kerkhove, an infectious disease epidemiologist at WHO, told a news briefing that the situation is not the same as six years ago with Covid-19 because hantavirus spreads through “close, intimate contact”.
Van Kerkhove said “this is not Covid, this is not influenza, it spreads very, very differently”. She said authorities had asked “everyone to wear a mask” on board the MV Hondius.
Those in contact with or caring for suspected cases, she added, should “wear a higher level of personal protective equipment”.
Hantavirus typically spreads from rodents - but in the latest outbreak the transmission between people was documented for the first time, the WHO said.
Meanwhile, health authorities are racing to trace dozens of people who have recently disembarked from the Dutch vessel MV Hondius.
Oceanwide Expedition said 29 passengers, of at least 12 different nationalities, had left the MV Hondius in St Helena, the British Overseas Territory.
It also said the body of one deceased person—now known to be a Dutch man - was taken off the vessel.
Seven of those who left the cruise liner were British nationals.
