2002 riots: SC asks Gujarat to give Rs 50 L compensation, job and accommodation to Bilkis Bano

The Supreme Court Tuesday directed the Gujarat government to give Rs 50 lakh compensation, a job and accommodation of her choice to Bilkis Bano, who was gang-raped during the 2002 riots in the state. The top court directed the state government to pay compensation to Bano within two weeks.

A bench comprising Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi and Justices Deepak Gupta and Sanjiv Khanna also asked the state government to withdraw the pensionary benefits given to erring police officials involved in the case. Counsel for Gujarat government informed the bench that an IPS officer R S Bhagora, who was convicted in the case, was demoted two ranks.

At the outset, the bench observed that Bano has witnessed the devastation of her family during the riots and there was no point looking at the past. Advocate Shobha Gupta, appearing for Bano, said the riot victim had to lead almost a nomadic life having no place to go and she was living at the mercy of NGOs.

She said Bano was just 21-year-old when she was left devastated during the riots. To this, the bench observed that the need of the hour was to rehabilitate Bano.

"In today's world, money is the best healer. We do not know whether it can heal all, but what else can we do for her," the bench said and asked the counsel for Bano to apprise it of an appropriate amount of compensation. The counsel appearing for Gujarat government tried to intervene but the bench said that state government was lucky that nothing was observed against it.

The bench then directed the state government to pay Rs 50 lakh as compensation to Bano. Bano had earlier refused to accept the offer of Rs 5 lakh and sought an exemplary compensation from the state government in a plea before the top court.

The top court had on March 29 asked the state government to take disciplinary action within two weeks against all the erring police officials. Bano had earlier told the apex court that no action had been taken by the state government against the officials convicted by the high court.

She had said that one IPS officer, currently serving in Gujarat, is set to retire this year while in case of four other officials who have retired no action has been taken against them like stopping pensions and retirement benefits. Her counsel had further said that these police officers were convicted by the high court for botching up the investigation in the case.

With regard to compensation, she had contended that Bano has been leading almost a nomadic life after being subjected to gruesome crime and therefore exemplary compensation should be granted. According to the prosecution, on March 3, 2002, Bilkis Bano's family was attacked by a mob at Randhikpur village near Ahmedabad in the aftermath of the Godhra riots.

Bilkis, five months pregnant at that time, was gang-raped and some members of her family killed. The trial in the case initially began in Ahmedabad. However, after Bano expressed apprehensions that the witnesses could be harmed and the CBI evidence tampered with, the apex court transferred the case to Mumbai in August 2004.

A special court on 21 January 2008 convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment 11 men for raping Bano and murdering seven of her family members while acquitting seven persons including the policemen and doctors. The high court, on May 4, 2017, convicted seven people -- five policemen and two doctors -- under sections 218 (not performing their duties) and section 201 (tampering of evidence) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC).

The top court had on July 10, 2017, dismissed the appeals of two doctors and four policemen, including Bhagora, challenging their conviction by the high court saying there was "clear-cut evidence" against them. One of the officers did not appeal. The convicts had later approached the Bombay High Court and sought to quash and set aside the trial court's conviction.

The CBI had also filed an appeal in the high court seeking harsher punishment of death for three of the convicted persons on the ground that they were the main perpetrators of the crime. The convicts had challenged the order on three main grounds — that all evidence in the case was fabricated by CBI, that Bilkis gave birth to a child after the incident, proving that she could not have been gang-raped, and the failure to find the bodies of some of her family members which proved that they were not killed.