By TwoCircles.net Staff Reporter,
Ahmedabad: A division bench of Gujarat High Court that has begun the final hearing in the Naroda Patiya cross appeals of 32 convicts, witnesses, SIT etc., has refused to give preference in hearing to the appeal filed by former minister Maya Kodnani and said it will hear all appeals together.
The devision bench comprising Justice Mohinder Pal and Justice R D Kothari on Tuesday heard the submissions made by the Special Investigation Team (SIT) which probed the riot case on the directions of the Supreme Court.
Prashant Desai, special public prosecutor for SIT, made a submission before the bench about the role of the apex court-appointed probe agency. Desai read out the apex court judgment which directed to form the SIT and said before the court how the SIT was constituted to probe the Naroda Patiya case, which relates to the killing of 97 members of minority community in Naroda-Patiya area during the 2002 riots in Gujarat. The incident had taken place a day after the Godhra train burning incident of February 27, 2002.
Refusing to give preference in hearing to the appeal filed by former minister Maya Kodnani, the bench said it would hear appeals filed by all the accused, the SIT and the witnesses together, and move ahead with the proceedings step by step.
A division bench comprising justice M R Shah and Justice K S Jhaveri had on July 15 recused itself from hearing the appeals of the case and said they were approached by some of the accused persons.
A special trial court in August 2012 had convicted 31 persons and awarded life term to 30, including the former state minister Maya Kodnani, for killings and criminal conspiracy, while it had also awarded ‘imprisonment till death’ to former VHP leader Babu Bajrangi in the Naroda-Patiya case.
Two convicts, including Kodnani and Kirpalsingh Chhabra, were granted bail in this case. Kodnani was released last year by the High Court division bench comprising Justice VM Sahai and Justice RP Dholaria. The hearing was earlier conducted before a division bench headed by justice Ravi Tripathi. However, the survivors of the case pleaded before the Supreme Court to not allow the final hearing to be conducted before the bench.
Meanwhile, justice Tripathi retired on May 6 and the case went before another division bench.
Earlier this month, Jytosna Yagnik, the special court judge, who in August 2012 had convicted 31 persons in the Naroda-Patiya case, had complained that Gujarat government was not heeding to her demand for increased security.
Yagnik had been given the Z level security earlier after she received threat calls and letters, but it was downgraded to Y level after she retired. After much furor, the Gujarat government upgraded the security of former judge from Y to Z category on July 23 this month. Yagnik had held in her judgment in Naroda case that Kodnani was the “kingpin” of the conspiracy and had awarded her 28 years’ jail-term. Bajrangi was sentenced to spend his entire life in jail.
(With inputs from PTI)