Bilkis Bano

Bilkis Bano is a Gujarat woman who survived the 2002 violence and then pursued her case through the courts for more than two decades. Her name is on the court record and in the Supreme Court's judgments. This profile follows that record only. It is in this history because Sikh bodies have cited the release of the men convicted in her case when arguing for the release of Bandi Singhs.

Key moments

• 3 March 2002: at Randhikpur village, during the violence that followed the Godhra train fire, a mob attacked her family. She was 19 and five months pregnant. Scroll and ThePrint, reporting the Supreme Court's 2024 judgment, say 14 members of her family were killed, including her three-year-old daughter. The Tribune's report of the convicts' later plea says seven. The reports differ on the count.
• Trial: the trial was moved to Mumbai and the CBI took over the probe (ThePrint). In 2008 a Mumbai special court sentenced 11 men to life imprisonment, and the Bombay High Court upheld the sentences nine years later.
• 23 April 2019: the Supreme Court orders Gujarat to pay her Rs 50 lakh, give her a government job and housing. She had refused the Rs 5 lakh the state first offered (The Quint).
• 13 May 2022 and 15 August 2022: the Supreme Court lets Gujarat consider remission under its 1992 policy, and on 15 August 2022 the state frees all 11 men (ThePrint, Scroll).
• 8 January 2024: the Supreme Court quashes the remission orders. A bench of Justices B V Nagarathna and Ujjal Bhuyan holds that Gujarat lacked the power, because the trial was held in Maharashtra, that the May 2022 order was obtained by suppressing facts and is a nullity, and that the remission orders were non-speaking and a usurpation of power. The convicts are told to surrender within two weeks (Scroll, ThePrint).
• 19 January 2024: the court refuses the convicts more time and orders them to surrender by 22 January (The Tribune). On 26 September 2024 it dismisses Gujarat's review petition against its remarks that the state acted in tandem and was complicit with a convict (The Tribune).

The Sikh connection: on 1 December 2022, launching an SGPC signature campaign for the release of Bandi Singhs, SGPC president Harjinder Singh Dhami cited the remission in this case and the release of Rajiv Gandhi's assassins in support of the demand (Devdiscourse, PTI).

Remembered for: a case that set a rule on which government may grant remission, and that showed a Supreme Court order could be nullified for suppressing facts.