The Supreme Court on Friday rejected the plea filed by 11 convicts in the case of gang rape of Bilkis Bano and murder of seven of her family members during the 2002 riots in Gujarat, seeking extension of time for surrender. . The apex court had asked the convicts to surrender before the jail authorities by January 21.

The bench of Justices BV Nagarathna and Ujjal Bhuyan said that the reasons given by the convicts had no merit.

“We have heard senior counsel and counsel for the applicants and also counsel for the non-applicants. There is no substance in the reasons given by the applicants for postponing the surrender and reporting back to jail as those reasons do not in any way prevent them from complying with our directions. Therefore, the miscellaneous applications are dismissed,” the bench said.

The top court had on January 8 set aside the Gujarat government’s decision to grant remission to 11 convicts in the case, saying the orders were “conservative” and passed without applying their mind.

In its 251-page judgment, the Supreme Court said that the Gujarat government has no jurisdiction to consider the application for remission of sentence and only the government of that state is competent to consider the application for remission of sentence and pass orders , where criminals were sentenced.

Bilkis Bano was 21 years old and five months pregnant when she was gang-raped while she and her family were trying to escape the terror of communal riots that broke out after the Godhra train burning incident in February 2002. Their three-year-old daughter was one of seven family members killed.

(With inputs from PTI)