The Supreme Court on Tuesday agreed to consider listing a plea challenging the grant of remission by the Gujarat government to 11 convicts in the Bilkis Bano gangrape case.
A bench of Justices B V Nagarathna and Ujjal Bhuyan said the reasons cited by the convicts have no merits.
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.
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.
They were found guilty of killing 14 Muslims in Ginjar village in Ghodasar area on the outskirts of Nadiad on March 3, 2002.
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.
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.
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.
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 lesson you taught was that you will free the murderers of Bilkis' three-year-old daughter. You also taught us that Ahsan Jafri can be killed. You taught the lesson of Gulbarga bakery, you taught the lesson of Best bakery lesson'
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.
A group of activists will mark the tenth anniversary of the Godhra carnage and the ensuing communal riots in Gujarat at the memorial at Gulberg Society in Ahmedabad on February 28.
The Nanavati Commission has indicated it may submit its final report with regard to the 2002 post-Godhra riots by the end of March 2012, the state government told the Gujarat high court on Thursday.
A bench comprising Chief Justice D Y Chandrachud and Justices P S Narasimha and Dipankar Datta took note of the submissions of lawyer Shobha Gupta that the review plea is yet to be listed.
A local court in Ahmedabad acquitted 29 persons on Tuesday, accused in a 2002 riot case in Abasana village of Detroj taluka of the district, where six people of minority community were killed.
The Supreme Court on Tuesday deferred till July 11 the hearing on a batch of pleas challenging the remission granted last year to all the 11 convicts in the case of gang rape of Bilkis Bano and murder of her family members during the 2002 post-Godhra riots.
Additional metropolitan magistrate MV Chauhan committed the case to the sessions court in Ahmedabad for trial against Setalvad, former state director general of police RB Sreekumar and ex-Indian Police Service officer Sanjiv Bhatt.
The Supreme Court on Monday asked the high-powered Special Investigation Team to probe the role of 64 people, including Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi, in the post Godhra-riots cases. The team has to submit its report to the apex court within three months.
Bilkis Bano, a survivor of the 2002 post-Godhra riots in Gujarat, on Wednesday said the premature release of all the 11 convicts serving a life sentence in a case related to her and seven family members, has shaken faith in justice and left her numb.
The three were part of a crowd that attacked minorities in Madhavpura area of the city and brutally killed a pregnant woman.
The Supreme Court today asked the Special Investigating Committee, headed by former Central Bureau of Investigation director R K Raghavan, to consider whether further probe was required against Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi and 52 others in the complaint filed by Jakia Jafri, widow of former Congress member of Parliament Ehsan Jafri, who was burnt alive in post Godhra riots.
Danseuse Mallika Sarabhai, noted Bengali litterateur Mahashweta Devi and ad guru Alyque Padamsee have sought an independent inquiry into the Gujarat riots.
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.
"When an authority does not have the jurisdiction to deal with a matter or it is not within the powers of the authority i.e. the State of Gujarat in the instant case, to be the appropriate Government to pass orders of remission under Section 432 of the CrPC, the orders of remission would have no legs to stand," it added.
Eleven convicts in the Godhra train burning case were on Tuesday handed down death sentence while 20 others were given life imprisonment by a special court in the 2002 incident that left 59 karsevaks dead and triggered riots which claimed over 1,200 lives in Gujarat.
C K Raulji, the BJP MLA from Godhra, said he does not know whether the convicts, released after spending more than 15 years in jail, were involved in the crime.
The Supreme Court on Thursday sought responses from the Centre and the Gujarat government on a plea challenging the remission granted to 11 life convicts in the case of Bilkis Bano's gangrape and murder of her family members.
Then minister of state for home Gordhan Jhadafiya was apparently referring to deaths in police firing in Bhavnagar: six persons died of which five were Hindus and one Muslim.
The CBI arrested 12 people, including a BJP worker, from Dahod district in Gujarat in connection with the gang rape of three women and the massacre of seven villagers during the post-Godhra communal riots in March 2002.
Sayed Abdul Sattar alias Kala was arrested by the Gujarat and Mumbai police in a joint operation in Mumbai on Wednesday.
Setalvad was taken into custody on June 25 last year along with former Gujarat Director General of Police R B Sreekumar and ex-IPS officer Sanjiv Bhatt in an offence registered by Ahmedabad crime branch police for allegedly fabricating evidence to frame "innocent people" in the post-Godhra riots cases.
Some BJP workers in the area have expressed unhappiness over her candidature.
The report placed the final death toll at 59, with three greviously injured and 21 with simple injuries.
The Supreme Court on Tuesday deferred to May 9 the hearing on a batch of pleas challenging the remission granted to the 11 convicts last year in the case of gangrape of Bilkis Bano and murder of her family members during the 2002 post-Godhra riots.
Human rights activist Teesta Setalvad on Friday said she was prevented from delivering a lecture at the premier Indian Institute of Science as the administration cancelled the meeting at the last minute.
The Supreme Court-appointed Special Investigation Team (SIT) will challenge before the Gujarat high court the recent acquittal of all 67 accused in the 2002 Naroda Gam riot case by a special court, sources said.
Eleven convicts walked out of Godhra sub-jail after the Gujarat government allowed their release on August 15 this year.
The Supreme Court is scheduled to resume hearing on Thursday a clutch of petitions challenging the remission granted to all 11 convicts in the Bilkis Bano gang-rape case and murder of seven of her family members during the 2002 Gujarat riots.
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