The Evening Wrap: Supreme Court agrees to constitute a Special Bench to hear Bilkis Bano plea

Chief Justice of India D.Y. Chandrachud on Wednesday told Bilkis Bano that a Special Bench will be formed to hear her petition challenging the release of 11 men sentenced to life imprisonment for her gang-rape during the 2002 riots. Making an oral mentioning before the CJI, advocate Shobha Gupta said she had in the past made several such appeals for early listing, but the case has still not come up for hearing. Chief Justice Chandrachud assured Gupta that she would get a specific date for the case. The CJI explained that Justice Ajay Rastogi, the judge who headed the Bench before which the case had previously come up, was in a different combination now. The case was referred back to the CJI after Justice Bela Trivedi, the Associate Judge accompanying Justice Rastogi, recused herself from hearing both Bano’s petition and those filed by several individuals, including CPI (M) leader Subhashini Ali and others like TMC leader Mahua Moitra. In January, Justice Ajay Rastogi had tagged the third-party petitions of Ali and Moitra with that of Bano and ordered the case to be listed whenever Justice Trivedi was not a part of the Bench. Solicitor General Tushar Mehta, for Gujarat, and advocate Rishi Malhotra, for the accused, had earlier challenged the locus standi of “third party petitioners” to challenge the premature release”. They had dubbed the petitioners as “interlopers”. However, the court has made it clear that the question of locus standi of the third parties did not arise anymore as Bano herself had approached the court against the release. Incidentally, a Review Bench led by Justice Rastogi had already dismissed a petition filed by Bano to review a May 2022 judgment of the court. This judgment had cleared the path for Gujarat to consider and release the convicts, who were serving life sentence in her case, under the State’s Premature Release Policy of 1992. The Gujarat government had argued that the decision to release the convicts prematurely had been taken after following the procedure established by law. “All the prisoners have completed 14 plus years in the prison under life imprisonment and opinions of the authorities concerned have been obtained as per the premature release policy of 1992 and submitted to the Ministry of Home Affairs vide letter dated June 28, 2022 and sought the approval of the Government of India. The Government of India conveyed the concurrence/approval of the Central government under Section 435 of the Code of Criminal Procedure for premature release of 11 prisoners in a letter on July 11, 2022,” the 57-page affidavit had said. Security barricades around British High Commission, residence of High Commissioner Alex Ellis removed The British High Commission on March 22 refused to comment after the law enforcement agencies removed the barricades around the British High Commission in Chanakyapuri and the residence of the U.K. High Commissioner Alex Ellis. The development came two days after the Indian High Commission in London was vandalised by pro-Khalistan protesters who took down the national tricolour demanding an end to the police action against fugitive Amritpal Singh in Punjab. “We do not comment on security matters,” said a British High Commission spokesperson to The Hindu after the barricades were removed yesterday. Sources in the mission said that the barricades were removed by the Delhi Police yesterday without giving any reason. On Sunday, the Ministry of External Affairs had summoned the senior most British diplomat and registered a strong protest against the incident in London. British High Commissioner Alex Ellis is currently out of country. The formal protest was followed by a large anti-U.K. demonstration which was organised outside the U.K. High Commission in Chanakyapuri on Monday. The High Commission was surrounded by Sikh protesters who demanded that the U.K. authorities should increase security to the Indian mission and other India-related addresses in the U.K. The Ministry of External Affairs has refused to comment to the development, saying, “security issues are not under the Ministry’s purview”. The removal of the barricades from outside the U.K.’s mission and residence of its top diplomat in New Delhi’s Rajaji Marg revived the memories of the “Khobragade incident” of December 2013 when the barricades around the Embassy of the United States were removed after Indian Consul General in New York Devyani Khobragade was subjected to ill treatment by the U.S. authorities for alleged violation of labour rules in her residence. India’s ties with the U.K. took a nosedive after the BBC broadcast a documentary in January on the Gujarat riots of 2002 titled “India: The Modi Question”. Soon thereafter, the BBC was raided by taxmen who called the move a “survey”. The raid by a team of the income tax officials drew attention in the U.K.’s Parliament where MPs condemned the raid and the Labour party termed it “deeply worrying”. The U.K.’s mission has been one of the most secure diplomatic addresses in New Delhi for decades and the measures were further tightened after the war in Afghanistan of 2001 when the security perimeter was expanded and stronger walls were erected around the mission and the residential quarters of serving British diplomats. Though there have been no recent attacks against the High Commission and staff, the Deputy High Commissioner of the U.K. Percy Norris was killed in 1984 by unknown assailants in Mumbai. The case was never fully investigated. China, Russia take aim at West unveiling new blueprint for ties China and Russia on Wednesday unveiled a broad long-term blueprint for their deepening relations, pledging to work together to push back against the U.S. Indo-Pacific strategy as well as attempts to “politicise” multilateral platforms. A joint statement, released in Mandarin and Russian, following Chinese President Xi Jinping’s visit to Moscow and talks with President Vladimir Putin, said both sides “firmly condemn the politicisation” of multilateral platforms and “attempts of certain countries to fill the agenda of multilateral platforms with unrelated issues and dilute the primary mission of the relevant mechanisms.” This reference pointed to sharp divisions in the G20 ahead of this year’s summit to be hosted by India. China and Russia earlier this month opposed references to the Ukraine war, leading to the failure of the G20 foreign ministers’ meeting in New Delhi to issue a collective statement. The lengthy joint statement also expressed “serious concern over NATO’s continued strengthening of military-security ties with Asia-Pacific countries” and said both sides “oppose the cobbling together of a closed and exclusive bloc structure in the Asia-Pacific region, creating bloc politics and camp confrontation”. Chinese officials have previously referred to the India-U.S.-Australia-Japan Quad as an “exclusive bloc”. The statement accused the U.S. of following “a Cold War mentality” and said its Indo-Pacific strategy “has a negative impact on peace and stability in the region.” Instead, the joint statement said, China and Russia were “committed to building an equal, open and inclusive security system in the Asia-Pacific region that does not target third countries”, pointedly using the term “Asia-Pacific” and not Indo-Pacific. Both Xi and Putin hailed the state of their relations following lengthy talks in Moscow. The Chinese leader once again referenced Beijing’s position paper on the Ukraine crisis, but the visit didn’t appear to suggest any major breakthrough in Chinese efforts to broker a peace in Ukraine, which Chinese media have highlighted in the wake of the recent landmark Saudi-Iran deal signed in Beijing. The Chinese Foreign Ministry on Wednesday didn’t comment on reports suggesting Xi would shortly hold a telephone call with Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. The joint statement criticised the West over Ukraine, saying both sides “oppose the practice by any country or group of countries to seek advantages in the military, political and other areas to the detriment of the legitimate security interests of other countries.” It said the “Russian side welcomes China’s willingness to play a positive role for the political and diplomatic settlement of the Ukraine crisis”. Xi on Tuesday stressed the longevity of China-Russia ties, saying relations were “consistent with historical logic and a strategic choice of China.” “It will not be changed by any turn of events,” he said, adding that “changes unseen in a century are evolving faster and the international balance of power is undergoing a profound shift.” Both pledged to work together in multilateral groupings including BRICS, and also to take forward collaboration in the recently dormant Russia-India-China grouping. The two sides also said they would “support each other firmly in safeguarding their core interests, first and foremost sovereignty, territorial integrity, security and development interests.” Russia said it supports China on Taiwan and also “firmly supports China’s initiatives to safeguard its sovereignty and territorial integrity.” Besides a joint statement, both sides also announced a “Plan to Promote the Key Elements of Russian-Chinese Economic Cooperation until 2030.” Putin said both sides had agreed “a package of 80 important and promising bilateral projects in various fields worth around $165 billion.” “Russia is a strategic supplier of oil, natural gas, including LNG, coal, and electricity to China,” he said. “Russian gas supplies to China are to reach at least 98 billion cubic metres by 2030, plus 100 million tonnes of liquefied natural gas. We have just discussed a good project, the new Power of Siberia-2 gas pipeline across Mongolia. We have reached agreement on most of the deal’s parameters. Russia will export 50 billion cubic metres of gas from reliable, stable supplies.” Supreme Court to hear batch of petitions pertaining to criminalisation of marital rape on May 9 The Supreme Court on March 22 agreed to hear on May 9 a series of petitions seeking to criminalise marital rape. three-judge Bench led by Chief Justice of India D.Y. Chandrachud heard an oral mentioning by senior advocate Indira Jaising for early listing of the case. The Centre, represented by Solicitor General Tushar Mehta, said it would take a day-and-a-half to present its arguments. Mehta had earlier said the case not only had legal ramifications but also widespread social impact. The Karnataka High Court had earlier held that a husband was liable to be charged for rape under the Indian Penal Code (IPC) if he has forcible sex with his wife. The Karnataka Government had supported the High Court judgment in an affidavit in the apex court subsequently. Exception two to Section 375 of the IPC decriminalises marital rape and holds that sexual intercourse by a man with his own wife, who is not under 18, without her consent is not rape. “A man is a man; an act is an act; rape is a rape, be it performed by a man the ‘husband’ on the woman ‘wife’,” the Karnataka High Court had observed in its decision, saying an accused should be put on trial regardless of the immunity in the penal code. A Division Bench of the Delhi High Court had in May 2022 delivered a split verdict in a separate case on the identical issue. Justice Rajiv Shakdher, who headed the two-judge Bench, struck down as unconstitutional the Exception two to Section 375 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC). However, Justice C. Hari Shankar, the Associate Judge on the High Court Bench, had rejected the plea to criminalise marital rape, noting that any change in the law should be carried out by the legislature since the issue required consideration of various aspects, including social, cultural and legal. Mehta asked Chief Justice Chandrachud whether the apex court should wait till a three-judge Bench of the Delhi High Court delivered its decision in the case. But the CJI said the apex court already had the benefit of the crystallised views of two judges and would go forward and hear the petitions. The Karnataka Government has referred to the report of the Justice J.S. Verma Committee of 2013 which had recommended the removal of the exception for marital rape and proposed that the law should specify that “marital or other relationship between the perpetrator or victim is not a valid defence against the crimes of rape or sexual violation”. The petitioners, including one by activist Ruth Manorama, had argued that the Exception undermined women’s consent to sex and violated bodily integrity, autonomy and dignity. In Brief: Prime Minister Narendra Modi held a high-level meeting on Wednesday to review the Covid situation amid rise in cases in the country and also took stock of the public health preparedness, officials said. India has recorded 1,134 new coronavirus cases, while the active cases increased to 7,026, according to the Union Health Ministry data updated on Wednesday. The death toll climbed to 5,30,813 with five deaths. One death each has been reported by Chhattisgarh, Delhi, Gujarat and Maharashtra while one fatality was reconciled by Kerala, the data updated at 8 am stated. The daily positivity was recorded at 1.09% while the weekly positivity was pegged at 0.98%. Evening Wrap will return tomorrow. [logo] The Evening Wrap 22 March 2023 [The Hindu logo] Welcome to the Evening Wrap newsletter, your guide to the day’s biggest stories with concise analysis from The Hindu. [[Arrow]Open in browser]( [[Mail icon]More newsletters]( Supreme Court agrees to constitute Special Bench to hear Bilkis Bano’s plea against remission to convicts in gang-rape case Chief Justice of India D.Y. Chandrachud on Wednesday told Bilkis Bano that [a Special Bench will be formed to hear her petition]( challenging the release of 11 men sentenced to life imprisonment for her gang-rape during the 2002 riots. Making an oral mentioning before the CJI, advocate Shobha Gupta said she had in the past made several such appeals for early listing, but the case has still not come up for hearing. Chief Justice Chandrachud assured Gupta that she would get a specific date for the case. The CJI explained that Justice Ajay Rastogi, the judge who headed the Bench before which the case had previously come up, was in a different combination now. The case was referred back to the CJI after Justice Bela Trivedi, the Associate Judge accompanying Justice Rastogi, recused herself from hearing both Bano’s petition and those filed by several individuals, including CPI (M) leader Subhashini Ali and others like TMC leader Mahua Moitra. In January, Justice Ajay Rastogi had tagged the third-party petitions of Ali and Moitra with that of Bano and ordered the case to be listed whenever Justice Trivedi was not a part of the Bench. Solicitor General Tushar Mehta, for Gujarat, and advocate Rishi Malhotra, for the accused, had earlier challenged the locus standi of “third party petitioners” to challenge the premature release”. They had dubbed the petitioners as “interlopers”. However, the court has made it clear that the question of locus standi of the third parties did not arise anymore as Bano herself had approached the court against the release. Incidentally, a Review Bench led by Justice Rastogi had already dismissed a petition filed by Bano to review a May 2022 judgment of the court. This judgment had cleared the path for Gujarat to consider and release the convicts, who were serving life sentence in her case, under the State’s Premature Release Policy of 1992. The Gujarat government had argued that the decision to release the convicts prematurely had been taken after following the procedure established by law. “All the prisoners have completed 14 plus years in the prison under life imprisonment and opinions of the authorities concerned have been obtained as per the premature release policy of 1992 and submitted to the Ministry of Home Affairs vide letter dated June 28, 2022 and sought the approval of the Government of India. The Government of India conveyed the concurrence/approval of the Central government under Section 435 of the Code of Criminal Procedure for premature release of 11 prisoners in a letter on July 11, 2022,” the 57-page affidavit had said. Security barricades around British High Commission, residence of High Commissioner Alex Ellis removed The British High Commission on March 22 refused to comment after the law enforcement agencies [removed the barricades around the British High Commission]( in Chanakyapuri and the residence of the U.K. High Commissioner Alex Ellis. The development came two days after the Indian High Commission in London was vandalised by pro-Khalistan protesters who took down the national tricolour demanding an end to the police action against fugitive Amritpal Singh in Punjab. “We do not comment on security matters,” said a British High Commission spokesperson to The Hindu after the barricades were removed yesterday. Sources in the mission said that the barricades were removed by the Delhi Police yesterday without giving any reason. On Sunday, the Ministry of External Affairs had summoned the senior most British diplomat and registered a strong protest against the incident in London. British High Commissioner Alex Ellis is currently out of country. The formal protest was followed by a large anti-U.K. demonstration which was organised outside the U.K. High Commission in Chanakyapuri on Monday. The High Commission was surrounded by Sikh protesters who demanded that the U.K. authorities should increase security to the Indian mission and other India-related addresses in the U.K. The Ministry of External Affairs has refused to comment to the development, saying, “security issues are not under the Ministry’s purview”. The removal of the barricades from outside the U.K.’s mission and residence of its top diplomat in New Delhi’s Rajaji Marg revived the memories of the “Khobragade incident” of December 2013 when the barricades around the Embassy of the United States were removed after Indian Consul General in New York Devyani Khobragade was subjected to ill treatment by the U.S. authorities for alleged violation of labour rules in her residence. India’s ties with the U.K. took a nosedive after the BBC broadcast a documentary in January on the Gujarat riots of 2002 titled “India: The Modi Question”. Soon thereafter, the BBC was raided by taxmen who called the move a “survey”. The raid by a team of the income tax officials drew attention in the U.K.’s Parliament where MPs condemned the raid and the Labour party termed it “deeply worrying”. The U.K.’s mission has been one of the most secure diplomatic addresses in New Delhi for decades and the measures were further tightened after the war in Afghanistan of 2001 when the security perimeter was expanded and stronger walls were erected around the mission and the residential quarters of serving British diplomats. Though there have been no recent attacks against the High Commission and staff, the Deputy High Commissioner of the U.K. Percy Norris was killed in 1984 by unknown assailants in Mumbai. The case was never fully investigated. China, Russia take aim at West unveiling new blueprint for ties China and Russia on Wednesday [unveiled a broad long-term blueprint for their deepening relations]( pledging to work together to push back against the U.S. Indo-Pacific strategy as well as attempts to “politicise” multilateral platforms. A joint statement, released in Mandarin and Russian, following Chinese President Xi Jinping’s visit to Moscow and talks with President Vladimir Putin, said both sides “firmly condemn the politicisation” of multilateral platforms and “attempts of certain countries to fill the agenda of multilateral platforms with unrelated issues and dilute the primary mission of the relevant mechanisms.” This reference pointed to sharp divisions in the G20 ahead of this year’s summit to be hosted by India. China and Russia earlier this month opposed references to the Ukraine war, leading to the failure of the G20 foreign ministers’ meeting in New Delhi to issue a collective statement. The lengthy joint statement also expressed “serious concern over NATO’s continued strengthening of military-security ties with Asia-Pacific countries” and said both sides “oppose the cobbling together of a closed and exclusive bloc structure in the Asia-Pacific region, creating bloc politics and camp confrontation”. Chinese officials have previously referred to the India-U.S.-Australia-Japan Quad as an “exclusive bloc”. The statement accused the U.S. of following “a Cold War mentality” and said its Indo-Pacific strategy “has a negative impact on peace and stability in the region.” Instead, the joint statement said, China and Russia were “committed to building an equal, open and inclusive security system in the Asia-Pacific region that does not target third countries”, pointedly using the term “Asia-Pacific” and not Indo-Pacific. Both Xi and Putin hailed the state of their relations following lengthy talks in Moscow. The Chinese leader once again referenced Beijing’s position paper on the Ukraine crisis, but the visit didn’t appear to suggest any major breakthrough in Chinese efforts to broker a peace in Ukraine, which Chinese media have highlighted in the wake of the recent landmark Saudi-Iran deal signed in Beijing. The Chinese Foreign Ministry on Wednesday didn’t comment on reports suggesting Xi would shortly hold a telephone call with Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. The joint statement criticised the West over Ukraine, saying both sides “oppose the practice by any country or group of countries to seek advantages in the military, political and other areas to the detriment of the legitimate security interests of other countries.” It said the “Russian side welcomes China’s willingness to play a positive role for the political and diplomatic settlement of the Ukraine crisis”. Xi on Tuesday stressed the longevity of China-Russia ties, saying relations were “consistent with historical logic and a strategic choice of China.” “It will not be changed by any turn of events,” he said, adding that “changes unseen in a century are evolving faster and the international balance of power is undergoing a profound shift.” Both pledged to work together in multilateral groupings including BRICS, and also to take forward collaboration in the recently dormant Russia-India-China grouping. The two sides also said they would “support each other firmly in safeguarding their core interests, first and foremost sovereignty, territorial integrity, security and development interests.” Russia said it supports China on Taiwan and also “firmly supports China’s initiatives to safeguard its sovereignty and territorial integrity.” Besides a joint statement, both sides also announced a “Plan to Promote the Key Elements of Russian-Chinese Economic Cooperation until 2030.” Putin said both sides had agreed “a package of 80 important and promising bilateral projects in various fields worth around $165 billion.” “Russia is a strategic supplier of oil, natural gas, including LNG, coal, and electricity to China,” he said. “Russian gas supplies to China are to reach at least 98 billion cubic metres by 2030, plus 100 million tonnes of liquefied natural gas. We have just discussed a good project, the new Power of Siberia-2 gas pipeline across Mongolia. We have reached agreement on most of the deal’s parameters. Russia will export 50 billion cubic metres of gas from reliable, stable supplies.” Supreme Court to hear batch of petitions pertaining to criminalisation of marital rape on May 9 The Supreme Court on March 22 [agreed to hear on May 9]( a series of petitions seeking to criminalise marital rape.  three-judge Bench led by Chief Justice of India D.Y. Chandrachud heard an oral mentioning by senior advocate Indira Jaising for early listing of the case. The Centre, represented by Solicitor General Tushar Mehta, said it would take a day-and-a-half to present its arguments. Mehta had earlier said the case not only had legal ramifications but also widespread social impact. The Karnataka High Court had earlier held that a husband was liable to be charged for rape under the Indian Penal Code (IPC) if he has forcible sex with his wife. The Karnataka Government had supported the High Court judgment in an affidavit in the apex court subsequently. Exception two to Section 375 of the IPC decriminalises marital rape and holds that sexual intercourse by a man with his own wife, who is not under 18, without her consent is not rape. “A man is a man; an act is an act; rape is a rape, be it performed by a man the ‘husband’ on the woman ‘wife’,” the Karnataka High Court had observed in its decision, saying an accused should be put on trial regardless of the immunity in the penal code. A Division Bench of the Delhi High Court had in May 2022 delivered a split verdict in a separate case on the identical issue. Justice Rajiv Shakdher, who headed the two-judge Bench, struck down as unconstitutional the Exception two to Section 375 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC). However, Justice C. Hari Shankar, the Associate Judge on the High Court Bench, had rejected the plea to criminalise marital rape, noting that any change in the law should be carried out by the legislature since the issue required consideration of various aspects, including social, cultural and legal. Mehta asked Chief Justice Chandrachud whether the apex court should wait till a three-judge Bench of the Delhi High Court delivered its decision in the case. But the CJI said the apex court already had the benefit of the crystallised views of two judges and would go forward and hear the petitions. The Karnataka Government has referred to the report of the Justice J.S. Verma Committee of 2013 which had recommended the removal of the exception for marital rape and proposed that the law should specify that “marital or other relationship between the perpetrator or victim is not a valid defence against the crimes of rape or sexual violation”. The petitioners, including one by activist Ruth Manorama, had argued that the Exception undermined women’s consent to sex and violated bodily integrity, autonomy and dignity. In Brief: Prime Minister Narendra Modi held [a high-level meeting on Wednesday to review the Covid situation]( amid rise in cases in the country and also took stock of the public health preparedness, officials said. India has recorded 1,134 new coronavirus cases, while the active cases increased to 7,026, according to the Union Health Ministry data updated on Wednesday. The death toll climbed to 5,30,813 with five deaths. One death each has been reported by Chhattisgarh, Delhi, Gujarat and Maharashtra while one fatality was reconciled by Kerala, the data updated at 8 am stated. The daily positivity was recorded at 1.09% while the weekly positivity was pegged at 0.98%. Evening Wrap will return tomorrow. First Day First Show Stay up-to-date on all things cinema with the "First Day First Show" cinema & entertainment newsletter. Every week, we bring you movie reviews, news from regional cinema, Bollywood, Hollywood, and beyond, as well as updates from the streaming platforms. Whether you're a cinephile or just looking for your next great binge-watch, we've got you covered. 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