The Bombay High Court on Friday rapped the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) for “not being prepared” in the 2002 Bilkis Bano gang rape case.
A Division Bench of Justices V.K. Tahilramani and Mridula Bhatkar told the CBI counsel: “You are not prepared. Please take proper charge of the case. Read the case papers over the weekend. Prepare a chart of witnesses, victims, deceased persons, convicts and acquitted accused.”
The court also said “How can you [Venegaonkar] say so? You should have prepared yourself before we start hearing the appeals.”
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The court was hearing the appeals of 11 people convicted in the gangrape case and the CBI was seeking death penalty for three of them. In January 2008, a special court sentenced 11 men to life imprisonment for the gangrape and also murdering seven members of Bano’s family after the 2002 Godhra riots.
Counsel for the CBI confused the names of witnesses, victims and convicts. He said he did not know the cause of death of the seven people as the post-mortem report was in Gujarati.
Bilkis, who was five months pregnant, was gangraped while six other members of her family managed to escape from the mob.
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The trial in the case had begun in Ahmedabad. However, after Bano expressed apprehensions that witnesses could be harmed and the evidence tampered with, the SC transferred the case to Mumbai in August 2004.
The convicts are Jaswantbhai, Govindbhai, Shailesh Bhatt, Radhyesham Shah, Bipin Chandra Joshi, Kesarbhai Vohania, Pradeep Mordhiya, Bakabhai Vohania, Rajubhai Soni, Mitesh Bhatt and Ramesh Chandana.