The Supreme Court today has demanded an explanation from the Gujarat government within four weeks on whether any departmental action had been initiated against the police officers convicted in the Bilkis Bano gangrape case. Bano, a gangrape survivor, sought grant of adequate compensation and initiation of departmental action against the errant police officers.

A bench comprising Chief Justice Dipak Misra and Justices A M Khanwilkar and D Y Chandrachud also allowed Bilkis Bano to file a fresh appeal seeking enhancement of the compensation earlier granted to her in the gangrape case that had taken place during the 2002 Gujarat riots. The Supreme Court asked the counsel for the rape survivor to file a separate appeal challenging a high court order on the issue of compensation.

THE BILKIS BANO CASE

The Bombay High Court on May 4 this year upheld a trial court's sentence awarding life imprisonment to 12 people in the Bilkis Bano gangrape case while setting aside the acquittal of seven persons including policemen and doctors.

The bench had convicted seven persons, including five policemen and two doctors, for not performing their duties (sections 218) and tampering of evidence (section 201) under the Indian Penal Code (IPC). The convicted policemen and doctors are Narpat Singh, Idris Abdul Saiyed, Bikabhai Patel, Ramsingh Bhabhor, Sombhai Gori, Arun Kumar Prasad (doctor) and Sangeeta Kumar Prasad (doctor).

Bilkis Bano, who was six months pregnant, was gangraped during the communal violence that erupted in Gujarat in 2002. Fourteen members of her family were also brutally murdered by a violent mob.

The trial began in Ahmedabad but the Supreme Court transferred the case to Mumbai in August 2004 after Bano expressed fears that witnesses could be harmed and the Central Bureau of Investigation evidence could be tampered with.

(Inputs from Anusha Soni and agencies)

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