The Supreme Court on Friday refused to hear pleas of two men convicted in the Bilkis Bano case seeking interim bail till a fresh decision is taken on their petitions for remission of life imprisonment, reported Bar and Bench.

On January 8, the Supreme Court had quashed the Gujarat government’s order that had granted remission to 11 men convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment for raping Bilkis Bano and murdering 14 members of her family during the 2002 communal riots in the state.

On Friday, a bench of Justices Sanjiv Khanna and Sanjay Kumar dismissed the plea by Radheyshaym Bhagwandas Shah and Rajubhai Babulal Soni. It observed that it cannot sit in appeal over a judgement passed by another bench of the court.

“What is this plea?” the bench said, reported PTI. “How is this plea maintainable? This is absolutely misconceived. How can an Article 32 petition be filed? We can’t sit in appeal over an order passed by another bench.”

Article 32 grants the right to move the Supreme Court for the enforcement of a person’s fundamental rights.

Advocate Rishi Malhotra, representing the two men, referred to the May 2022 judgement that held that the Gujarat Government was the competent authority to consider the remission. However, the court highlighted that its January judgement had rendered the earlier judgement void.

In May 2022, the Supreme Court had directed the Gujarat government to decide on the remission of the men convicted in the Bilkis Bano case.

However, in January, a bench of Justices BV Nagarathna and Ujjal Bhuyan said that the May 2022 order was secured by suppressing facts and fraud played on the court. The bench said that Shah had suppressed material facts to get a favourable order, which led to the release of all 11 convicts.

Nagarathna said that the Gujarat government did not have the power to pass the remission order. The government of the state where the trial had taken place, which in this case is Maharashtra, is the appropriate authority that can pass such orders as per Section 432 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, Nagarathna held.

The court found that the Gujarat government was not the competent authority to grant remission and ordered the convicts to surrender back to prison within two weeks.

Also read: Truth, power and women: Why the Bilkis Bano judgement has powerful resonances