Mumbai: The Bombay High Court on Friday asked the CBI to submit details of all convicts in the 2002 Bilkis Bano gang-rape case. The court sought details related to their sentences and the time spent in jail by them by next week.
Last year, a Division Bench of Justices V.K. Tahilramani and Mridula Bhatkar had reserved its judgement on the appeals filed by 11 persons convicted in the case, as well as on the appeal filed by the CBI seeking death penalty for three of them.
On January 21, 2008, a special court had convicted and sentenced 11 men to life imprisonment for gang-raping Ms. Bano and murdering seven of her family members in the aftermath of the Godhra riots.
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According to the prosecution, a mob had attacked her family at Randhikpur village near Ahmedabad on March 3, 2002. The convicts later approached the HC and sought quashing of the trial court’s order.
The trial in the case had begun in Ahmedabad. However, after Ms. Bano expressed apprehensions that witnesses could be harmed and the CBI evidence tampered with, the Supreme Court had transferred the case to Mumbai in August 2004.
Arguing for enhancement of their sentences, CBI counsel Hiten Venegavkar sought death penalty for three accused in the case. He said it is important that a message be sent out to to society as it is a matter involving communal violence.
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On October 27, 2016 the court rejected an intervention application filed by Ms. Bano to be heard in the appeal at HC.