The remission of the life sentence for 11 men convicted of the gang rape of Bilkis Yakub Rasool, then five months pregnant, and the murder of her child and other members of her family during the 2002 Gujarat riots represents a new low for both the judicial system and the Indian polity. Natural justice alone dictated that the criminals deserved no mercy. But the intricacies of the law that led to this travesty of justice demand an urgent review both by the Supreme Court and the government. Though the committee that “unanimously” decided in favour of remission claimed it was