‘Take Issues to Concerned Authorities’: SC Tells Bilkis Bano

Bilkis Bano was gang-raped when she was five months pregnant during the 2002 riots in the Gujarat.

File photo of Bilkis Bano.

(Photo: IANS)

The Supreme Court on Tuesday, 27 October, asked Bilkis Bano, who was gang-raped when she was five months pregnant during the 2002 riots in the Gujarat, to go to the concerned authorities with her grievances related to her job offer and accommodation provided by the state, reported Live Law.

According to Live Law, a bench of Chief Justice SA Bobde and Justices AS Bopanna and V Ramasubramanian asked Bano’s lawyer to withdraw her interlocutory plea and make a representation, reported Live Law.

“Ms Shobha Gupta, learned counsel for the applicant (Bilkis Bano) seeks leave of this Court to withdraw the interlocutory application with liberty to make a representation before the concerned authorities. The interlocutory application is dismissed as withdrawn with liberty as prayed for.”   

Supreme Court, according to Live Law 

In September 2019, Supreme Court had directed the Gujarat government to give within two weeks Rs 50 lakh compensation, a job and an accommodation of choice to Bilkis Bano, who was gang-raped when she was five months pregnant during the 2002 riots in the state.

WHAT WAS BANO’S PLEA?

Bano had filed a plea, informing the court that she was not satisfied with the state government’s compliance of the Supreme Court order directing the state to provide a job offer and accommodation provision for Bano.

Bano said that instead of accommodation, the state government had only provided her with 50 square metres land, which is marked in records as garden area zone, reported Live Law.

With regard to job, the state government had offered her a peon’s job in the Irrigation Department on contract basics for a particular project in fixed pay grade, Bano further said according to Live Law.

WHAT DID THE STATE SAY?

Solicitor General Tushar Mehta opposed her plea and said that the state had provided Bilkis Bano with Rs 50 lakh and a job.

MORE DETAILS

In April 2019 the an apex court bench headed by the then Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi had asked the state government to provide Rs 50 lakh compensation, a job and accommodation to Bano.

On 30 September 2019, the court directed the Gujarat government to give Rs 50 lakh compensation, a job and an accommodation of choice to Bilkis Bano, within two weeks. The court had further asked the state why it had not provided the same despite the apex court's 23 April order.

"Should we note in the order that the compensation has been ordered keeping in view the peculiar facts of the case," the bench had said.

BACKGROUND

On 3 March 2002, Bano’s family was attacked by a mob at Randhikpur village near Dahod during the post-Godhra riots; 14 members of her family were killed. Bano, who was five months pregnant at the time, was gang-raped by the mob and left to die.