The eleven convicts from the Bilkis Bano case who filed applications on Friday, January 19, asking for more time to turn themselves in to jail officials were denied by the Supreme Court.
The offenders’ stated justifications for requesting an extension of their surrender deadline, according to the court, were unfounded. As per the court’s January 8 ruling that overturned their premature release, the convicts must turn themselves in to the jail authorities by January 21, which was the first deadline set by the court.
The Court denied the petitions, ruling that the “reasons cited by applicants to seek postponement of surrender and report back to jail have no merit insofar as those reasons in no way prevent them from complying with our directions.”
Multiple pleas submitted by the prisoners in the Bilkis Bano case seeking an extension of time to surrender before jail officials were heard by a bench of Justices BV Nagarathna and Ujjal Bhuyan. The Supreme Court overturned the Gujarat government’s remission decisions on January 8, permitting the early release of the 11 convicts who had been given life sentences for several murders and gang rapes in the wake of the 2002 sectarian violence in Gujarat.