Arun Jaitley, one of the BJP's seniormost leaders and a friend of Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi, in an exclusive conversation with Sheela Bhatt.
The counsel of social activist Teesta Setalvad on Thursday told a sessions court in Ahmedabad that affidavits which the prosecution claims are false were signed by witnesses and submitted in different courts in the past.
'When the incident took place we were in the opposition. We hardly know anything about it. We will study the facts to know the truth,' the railway minister said.
Setting aside the trial court order acquitting the accused, the Gujarat high court on Thursday sentenced eleven persons to life imprisonment for the murder of two persons during a 2002 post-Godhra riot at Meda Adraj village in Mehsana district.
The year 2011 will be remembered in Gujarat for verdicts related to the Godhra train burning incident and the riots that followed.
The Gujarat High Court on Monday dismissed a petition challenging the Central Pota Review Committee's recommendation of dropping Prevention of Terrorism Act charges against the accused in Godhra train carnage case. With this decision, nearly 134 accused in the Godhra train burning case will not be tried under the repealed anti-terror law.
Gujarat: 11 get life imprisonment for post-Godhra riot
The Gujarat government has granted yet another extension of six months to the Nanavati Commission, probing the 2002 post-Godhra riots, officials said on Tuesday.
A two-member commission headed by Justice G T Nanavati on Thursday submitted the first part of its report on the 2002 Sabarmati train carnage in Godhra and subsequent riots to Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi. The commission, appointed by the Modi government after the worst-ever riots in the state and comprising retired Justices Nanavati and Akshay Mehta, examined more than 1,000 witness during the period of six years.
Godhra commission asks President office to decide on letters
The documents, which Sinha had asked, include the letter written by Narayanan to Vajpayee on the steps being taken to control the Godhra riots.\n
The high court also upheld the trial court order convicting two on charges of murder and acquitted another accused Devabhai Samatbhai Bharwad.
The committee headed by Justice U C Banerjee, which probed the Sabarmati Express blaze, had said in the report the fire was 'accidental'.
The state government has challenged a trial court's decision to acquit 61 persons in the Godhra train burning case in Gujarat high court and sought death sentences for twenty convicts awarded life imprisonment in the case.
Ghulam Rabbani, a practising advocate, lodged the two-page complaint with Santosh Nagar police station, seeking legal action against Modi and his immediate arrest terming his statements as "highly provocative and malicious against Muslim community, with an intention to wound their religious feelings and promote enmity between Muslims and Hindus".
A bench of Justices B V Nagarathna and Ujjal Bhuyan said the reasons cited by the convicts have no merits.
The top court on January 8 had quashed the Gujarat government's decision to grant remission to 11 convicts in the case, saying the orders were 'stereotyped' and passed without application of mind.
Possible chinks in the Gujarat government's "conspiracy theory" were on Tuesday pointed out to the Godhra inquiry commission, which is in the final stages of hearing events associated with the burning of the Sabarmati Express on February 27, 2002.
A special court in the Sabarmati jail in Ahmedabad on Tuesday convicted 31 accused in what is the first verdict in the Godhra train burning case.
"The courts of law will take their own course...there are processes involved because definitely there will be an appeal filed in the high court. Therefore, it is premature to comment on this," Law Minister M Veerappa Moily told media persons in New Delhi.
A special court in Gujarat on Thursday acquitted all the 67 accused, including former Bharatiya Janata Party minister Maya Kodnani, in the 2002 Naroda Gam riots case in which 11 people were killed.
The court said that all the convicts will have to undertake community services for six hours a week besides reporting to the local police station on a weekly basis as bail conditions.
In the coming days, unless Modi tones down the communal spiel, it will be clear that anxiety continues to drive his mind and clouds his judgment, observes Modi biographer Nilanjan Mukhopadhyay.
In the wake of the Gujarat high court order regarding the PIL filed by suspended IPS officer Sanjiv Bhatt, the state government has submitted some of the documents pertaining to the 2002 post-Godhra riots to the Nanavati Commission.
The special investigation team conducting preliminary inquiry on the complaint against Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi and 62 others has sought extension from the Supreme Court, sources in said in Ahmedabad on Monday.
The Banerjee Committee, which is conducting an inquiry into the Godhra train burning incident, was on Thursday given a three-month extension by the Union Cabinet.
The Supreme Court on Wednesday extended interim protection from arrest till July 19 to activist Teesta Setalvad in a case linked to the 2002 post-Godhra riots.
A bench comprising Chief Justice Y K Sabharwal and Justice C K Thakker directed that the matter shall be heard in August.
Eleven persons from Muslim community killed in violence in Naroda Gam area of Ahmedabad during the bandh call given by right-wing organisations a day after the Godhra train burning incident.
The Gujarat high court has rejected a petition seeking direction to the Justice Nanavati-Mehta Commission inquiring into the post-Godhra riots of 2002, to summon Chief Minister Narendra Modi.
Demanding that the Banerjee Committee report be placed on the table of the House, Mr Madhusoodhan Mistry (Congress) said, "Mr Modi should not be allowed to continue even for a single day as chief minister as he has failed to do his duty."
The cleric is a key accused in the Godhra train burning case.
'It is easy to become railway minister but it is difficult to understand the functioning of the ministry,' JD-U leader Nitish Kumar said sarcastically.
The world premiere of Parzania is held in Goa.
Kodnani is an accused in the Naroda Gam and Naroda Patiya case. Vishwa Hindu Parishad leader Jaideep Patel, another key accused in the Naroda Gam case behind bars, was also granted bail.
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