The Supreme Court on Tuesday directed that notices be published in an English and a Gujarati newspaper to secure the responses of some of the 11 lifers released in the Bilkis Bano case, following complaints that serving formal notices to them was proving difficult.
Advocate Shoba Gupta, appearing for Bilkis, had told the bench of Justices K.M. Joseph, B.V. Nagarathna and Ahsanuddin Amanullah that attempts to serve fresh notices on some of the convicts had been unsuccessful because they could not be traced at their addresses.
These convicts could not earlier be served with formal notices, either, with Gupta alleging they were not receiving them and defence lawyers countering that their clients had been out of station. The failure to serve all the notices was stalling the progress of proceedings on Bilkis’s plea challenging the remission of the convicts’ sentences by the Gujarat government.
At a previous hearing, when defence lawyers sought an adjournment saying notices had not been served to all the convicts, an anguished Justice Joseph had alleged a ploy to prevent the bench headed by him from dealing with the matter.
(On Tuesday, with the court fixing the next hearing for July 10, it became clear that Justice Joseph will take no more part in the matter. He is due to retire on June 16.)
Gupta said that even the police, directed at the last hearing to serve the notices on those not yet served with them, could not do so as one of the respondents had switched off his mobile and could not be found at home. Even his relatives had refused to accept the notices, she alleged.
Gupta placed an affidavit in support of her contention. She sought the issuance of warrants against the convicts.
“These people are on remission. Our concern is that these people should at least report fortnightly at the local police stations. The rule precisely says that if there is a criminal case, warrant can be issued. Please see Sections 64 and 65 of CrPC,” she said.
To a query from the bench, a counsel for one of the convicts said he had been unable to contact his client, and that the local lawyer in Gujarat was in the US and would return only in June.
“In August you received the first notice. Don’t make a mockery of this. No playing with the court,” Justice Joseph warned.
The bench then said it would deem the serving of notices to all the convicts as having been completed.
Solicitor-general Tushar Mehta, appearing for Gujarat, then said that according to the CrPC, pasting the notices on the residences of the respondents is deemed sufficient. He said that if the court did not feel this was sufficient, it could direct publication of the notices in newspapers.
The bench then asked senior advocate Siddharth Luthra to assist it as an officer of the court.
Luthra suggested that formal notices be served and the matter taken up in July after the summer vacation.
The bench then directed that the notices be published in an English daily and a Gujarati daily – those with the widest circulation in the state. The notice should state that the next hearing is on July 10, it added.
The 11 convicts had been sentenced to life for gang-raping a pregnant Bilkis and killing seven members of her family during the 2002 riots. The Gujarat government released them, on August 15 last year, with the Centre’s concurrence.
Bilkis has challenged the remissions along with CPI leader Subhashini Ali, Trinamul MP Mahua Moitra and others.
