The Gujarat high court on Thursday issued a notice to the Special Investigation Team on a petition by a convict sentenced to death in the Godhra train carnage, demanding that additional evidence in form of CDs of a TV sting operation be brought on record
"The avenues for challenging the Gujarat high court's order are still open, and we will go to the apex court in this regard."
An Ahmedabad court dismissed an application, on Tuesday, filed by some of the witnesses in Gulburg housing society case of the post-Godhra riots, seeking transfer of the matter to another court on the ground that the current judge was biased.
A sessions court in Gujarat on Monday convicted 23 people and acquitted as many others for want of evidence in connection with the Ode village massacre in 2002 post-Godhra riots.
Now, the chief justice of the high court will allot the case to a new judge.
POTA court judge Jyotsana Yagnik sentenced 18 of the 22 accused to 10 years imprisonment, while three got nine years and one three years jail term. Out of the 22 convicted 21 are from the city and one from Mumbai.
The court has asked UPA not to table the report in Parliament till the court concludes hearing on a petition filed by a relative of a survivor. \n
A large number of Muslims, holding the national tricolour, greeted the Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi during his visit to the densely populated Polan Bazaar in Godhra town on Republic Day, president of Ghanchi Muslim Samaj Phirdos Kothi said on Tuesday.
'The cases on hand have no genesis in the act of terrorism or waging war against the state,' the court said.
The court also observed that 'in spite of policemen being present when the incident occurred, they could not identify the accused persons and that if they had taken enough precaution the incident could have been prevented'.
'What did these men mean to the government? What does its support for these men say about this government?'
The Gujarat high court on Tuesday granted bail to three people who were sentenced to life imprisonment in the 2002 Godhra train burning case which had triggered communal riots in the state.
As the 240-seater prime minister attempts to moderate his image of hardline hero, he has made room for others to elbow in and that is what is happening. And that it what will continue to happen from inside the BJP, notes Aakar Patel.
The Supreme Court on Monday favoured setting up of designated courts for the trial of the accused in the post-Godhra riot cases in Gujarat. A bench headed by Justice Arijit Pasayat asked the state government and senior advocate Harish Salve, who is assisting the court as an amicus curiae in the matter, to place before it suggestions in this regard by Monday.
The Supreme Court on Tuesday directed that the charges under Prevention of Terrorism Act against 134 accused in the 2002 Godhra train burning incident in Gujarat shall be dropped and the trial can resume against all the accused under the provisions of the IPC.
The clashes occurred during Ganesh festival procession.
A sadhvi who travelled in the ill-fated Sabarmati Exress told Godhra Commission that the train was stopped for some youths who had been left behind on Godhra station.
The compensation package for Gujarat riot victims will keep them on par with the measures taken in respect of victims of the anti-Sikh riots in 1984. The next of kin of 1,169 people killed in the riots would be paid Rs 3.5 lakh ex-gratia in addition to the amount paid by the state government, Finance Minister P Chidambaram said after the cabinet meeting in New Delhi.
As Modi takes guard for a third term with trusted and seasoned hands around him, the BJP is hopeful that he will prove his detractors wrong and continue to fuel the party's expansion horizontally and vertically with his inventive policies in government and new set of ideas in politics with the core of Hindutva, development and welfarism remaining intact.
The incident of burning S-6 coach of Sabarmati Express on February 27, 2002, which triggered off violent riots in Gujarat, was a pre-planned conspiracy and not an accident, according to the first part of the Godhra Commission report.
Twelve witnesses identified Zabir Bin Yamin Behra, who has been charged under Prevention of Terrorism Act.
The government had appealed the grant of bail by high court to four accused in the Godhra carnage.
The Gujarat Government has challenged a high court order granting bail to certain accused persons in the Godhra train burning incident.
"Why are our jails overcrowded? Why is the the policy of remission being applied selectively?"
Sixty-three people, including the main accused Maulvi Hussain Umarji, acquitted in the 2002 Godhra train burning case, on Wednesday reached their hometown in Gujarat after spending almost eight years in prison.
The issue related to the petition filed by the National Human Rights Commission, which sought transfer of the trial of the riots' cases outside Gujarat and re-investigation by an independent agency. The NHRC had filed the petition after several witnesses turned hostile amidst allegations of threat, coercion and inducement to derail the investigation.AA three-member bench said it would pass necessary orders on Wednesday for constituting the SIT.
The Gujarat high court on Friday refused to direct the Nanavati Commission, which is probing the post-Godhra riots, to summon Chief Minister Narendra Modi. A division bench of Chief Justice Bhaskar Bhattacharya and Justice J B Pardiwala refused to interfere in the proceedings of the commission.
Dropping references to the demolition of Babri Masjid in Ayodhya, the killing of Muslims in Gujarat riots and Hindutva, and tweaking the reference to Manipur's merger with India are among the latest set of revisions made public by the National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT) in its textbooks.
The prosecution on Friday sought death penalty for all the 31 convicts in the Godhra train carnage case in a special court in Ahmedabad which reserved till March 1 the pronouncement of quantum of punishment for them.
Godhra municipality councillor Salim Abdul Gaffar Sheikh has been accused of being at the spot, armed with lethal weapons, where the Sabarmati Express was burned down.
They were found guilty of killing 14 Muslims in Ginjar village in Ghodasar area on the outskirts of Nadiad on March 3, 2002.
Several residents of a housing complex built by the Vadodara Municipal Corporation (VMC) under a Gujarat government scheme have been staging protests against the allotment of a flat to a Muslim woman, saying the locality is meant only for Hindus.
The petition said there was need for constituting a commission of inquiry headed by a sitting judge of the high court, as neither the Centre nor the state government has taken appropriate action over the alleged role of Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi in the incident and the riots in 2002.
Rediff.com's Sheela Bhatt was in the courtroom at the Sabarmati Jail where the judgment in the Godhra train burning case was pronounced on Tuesday. She has also followed and written about the twists and turns in the historic nine-year legal battle. Her impressions and analysis of the verdict.
The Supreme Court has refused to entertain the Narendra Modi government's plea for staying the Gujarat high court's February 8 order to pay compensation to over 500 shrines damaged during the infamous 2002 riots in the wake of the Godhra train carnage. While declining to entertain the plea, a bench of justices K S Radhakrishnan and Dipak Misra also asked the state government to furnish details of the number of religious structures actually damaged.
The state government had opposed his bail plea saying the alleged offence is a "very heinous crime" and there is a prima-facie case against him and the role attributable to him in support of the charge.
A former British envoy has deposed before a special court through video conferencing in connection with a post-Godhra riot case, where four persons, including three British nationals, were killed in Sabarkantha district.
The Supreme Court-appointed Special Investigation Team has said that Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi took all possible steps to control the 2002 post-Godhra riots and questioned the motive behind filing a complaint against him by a riot victim four years after the communal violence.
In a relief to Narendra Modi, the Gujarat high court on Wednesday rejected a petition seeking directions to the Nanavati Commission to summon the state chief minister for questioning in connection with the 2002 riots.
The Narendra Modi government was on Wednesday pulled up by the Gujarat high court for "inaction and negligence" on its part during the 2002 post-Godhra riots that led to large-scale destruction of religious structures. A division bench of acting chief Justice Bhaskar Bhattacharya and Justice J B Pardiwala made these observations, while ordering compensation for over 500 religious structures in the state.
