TRS MLC Kalvakuntla Kavitha seeks CJI's help after release of 11 rapists

TRS MLC Kalvakuntla Kavitha on Friday sought Chief Justice of India NV Ramana's intervention to reverse the remission granted by the Gujarat government to 11 convicts. The 11 were given life sentences for multiple rapes and murders in the Bilkis Bano case. The convicts were released from Godhra jail on Independence Day, after a government panel of the BJP-led state approved their application for remission.

"Crimes such as rape shake the very core of our social conscience and seeing convicted rapists walk out freely on a day such as our Independence Day sends shivers down the spine of every woman and indeed every citizen who places their faith in the laws of the land and the justice system of our country," she said.

Kavitha asked if the release was done in consultation with the central government and sought clarity if substantive checks were done prior to the release. The case was investigated by the Central Bureau of Investigation, and a CBI court had sentenced the convicts, she said. "Section 435 (1) (a) of the Criminal Procedure Code stated that the power of the state government to remit or commute a sentence in any case which was investigated by CBI shall not be exercised by the state government, except after consultation with the central government," she said. Her letter comes two days after the Congress had pointed out the same.


Bano was merely 21, and five months pregnant, when this heinous crime took place and "to imagine her seeing her rapists walking free with impunity, then being garlanded and celebrated for release must have shattered her," she said.