The Gujarat High Court has granted parole to Bilkis Bano case second convict Ramesh Chandana for 10 days to attend the wedding of his nephew.
Chandana’s lawyer Khushbu Vyas had submitted before the court of Justice Divyesh Joshi on February 16 that wedding festivities will begin from March 5 and had stated that Chandana is seeking parole leave to attend his “niece’s wedding”.
Vyas informed the court of Justice Joshi that Chandana wants to attend the “marriage of his sister’s son”. Vyas told the court that the wedding procession would go from Surat to Godhra and Chandana’s presence was required “to perform rituals”.
Justice Joshi orally instructed that 10 days’ time is granted.
Chandana had moved the plea less than a month after he and 10 other convicts in the case surrendered at the Godhra sub-jail on January 21 following the order of the Supreme Court. On February 5, the high court had allowed convict Pradip Modhiya parole from February 7 to 11 following the death of his father-in-law.
According to the Gujarat government’s affidavit before the Supreme Court in October 2022, Chandana was out of jail for 1,576 days (1,198 days of parole and 378 days of furlough) – the maximum among the 11 convicts in the case – during the period of his incarceration since 2008.
Details of his leaves show that between January and June 2015, a 14-day furlough had turned to 136 days of leave owing to Chandana surrendering late by 122 days.
Chandana and 10 other life-term convicts in the case had surrendered shortly before midnight on January 21, after the Supreme Court on January 8 annulled the remission and premature release granted to them by the Gujarat government on August 15, 2022.
The Gujarat government had released the convicts as per its 1992 remission policy, based on a May 2022 SC order in a petition filed by one of the convicts, Radheshyam Shah. Bano had challenged the state government’s decision before the Supreme Court.
Bano was 21 years old and five months pregnant when she was gang-raped while fleeing with her family from Randhikpur during the 2002 Gujarat riots. Fourteen members of her family, including her three-year-old daughter, were also killed.
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