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Why The SC Had To Order Gujarat Govt Twice To Compensate Bilkis Bano

The top court had ordered Rs 50 lakh compensation to be paid to Bilkis Bano by the Gujarat government in a landmark ruling in April.
2002 communal riots victim Bilkis Bano during a press conference, at Press Club, on April 24, 2019 in New Delhi, India.
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2002 communal riots victim Bilkis Bano during a press conference, at Press Club, on April 24, 2019 in New Delhi, India.

The Supreme Court on Monday ordered the Gujarat government a second time to ensure compensation of Rs 50 lakh, a job and accommodation to Bilkis Bano, who was gang-raped during the 2002 Gujarat riots.

The top court had ordered the same in a landmark ruling in April. Bano had earlier refused to accept the offer of Rs 5 lakh and had sought exemplary compensation from the state government in a plea before the top court.

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When Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi asked on Monday why the state government had not implemented its previous order, Solicitor General Tushar Mehta said the state government was going to file a review petition against it.

Mehta told the court the order has not been complied with since the Gujarat government wanted the court to reconsider its directive in terms of the precedent it might set, News18′s Utkarsh Anand reported.

The top court declined to review its order and asked the state to award compensation within two weeks.

The Gujarat government agreed to carry out the order after the Supreme Court made a clarification to its April order on Monday, to say that the compensation had been ordered in light of the peculiar facts and circumstances of the case, Bhadra Sinha of Hindustan Times reported. The clarification was made on the state’s request.

A special court had on 21 January 2008 convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment 11 men for raping Bano and murdering seven of her family members in the aftermath of the Godhra riots, while acquitting seven persons including the policemen and doctors.

Following the Supreme Court order, Bano had said, “This was a long fight but I have never lost faith in the Constitution and the justice system.”

The compensation awarded to Bano is the highest ever given to a rape survivor in India.

Her lawyer Shobha Gupta had spoken to HuffPost India’s Betwa Sharma why she was not fully satisfied with the compensation.

“The compensation you are granting should be monumental. It should be loud and clear. So loud that it resounds in everybody’s ears. A figure of one crore would have rung loud and clear. For the victims, it would say ‘don’t worry we are here’. For the perpetrators, it would say ‘don’t you dare to do it again’. For all state governments, it would be a note of caution,” she said.

At a press conference post the April verdict, Bilkis had spoken of Saleha, her three-year-old daughter, whose head was smashed with a rock before her eyes.

“We did not find her body. We could not even give her a burial. We hope this will give her some peace,” she said.

Bilkis said she and her husband planned to use the compensation to start a fund in Saleha’s name to help other rape survivors and educate their children.

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This article exists as part of the online archive for HuffPost India, which closed in 2020. Some features are no longer enabled. If you have questions or concerns about this article, please contact indiasupport@huffpost.com.