Compensate Bilkis Bano in 2 weeks: Supreme Court to Gujarat

New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Monday gave the Gujarat government two weeks to pay gang-rape survivor Bilkis Bano Rs 50 lakh, a job and accommodation. SC had ordered the same six months ago and the state government had promised to do the needful but sought to renege from its promise on Monday.

Solicitor General Tushar Mehta said that the state government wanted to file a review in the case. “We want to file a review,” he told a three-judge bench led by Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi. However, the CJI asked the state to comply with its order in two weeks. Mehta then sought 4 weeks, but the CJI said that 2 weeks was more than enough to do what the state had said it would do. The bench then adjourned the case for two weeks. Appearing for Bilkis, advocate Shobha accused the state of not doing anything it had promised in court. The state had initially showed a marked willingness to grant her necessary compensation to avoid a detailed SC hearing on her appeal against the high court’s decision to acquit several accused and reduce the sentences given to some to the period spent in jail.

The state had also dropped all disciplinary proceedings against erring cops and even reinstated some of them despite their conviction in the case. Nineteen-yearold Bilkis Bano was gang-raped during the anti-Muslim riots in Gujarat in 2002.