HC adjourns hearing till third week of June after lawyers pleaded time citing 26,000-page case record
The Gujarat High Court has adjourned the hearing of appeals in the 2002 Gulberg Society massacre case to third week of June after the lawyers defending the convicts appealed to the court that they need time to prepare for the case. During a recent hearing, the lawyers informed the court that the records of the case consist of 26,000 pages and they need time to come prepared for the case.
The division bench of Justice JB Pardiwala and Justice AC Rao, presently occupied with the matter, acceded to the requests made by the lawyers and adjourned the final hearing in the matter to post summer vacation in the high court.
Interestingly, the court had earlier decided to expedite the final hearing in the appeals after it found that some of the accused in the case are behind bars for over a decade. The court had then asked the Ahmedabad sessions court to prepare a ‘paper book’ in the case and give it all concerned parties who are before the high court, so that the final hearing in the case can begin.
The ‘paper book’ contains all the orders of the trial court, list of dates, grounds of appeal, annexures, affidavits, and various other materials related to the case required during the hearing.
Owing to the fact that it was long-drawn complicated case, even the principal judge of the Ahmedabad city civil and sessions court had written to the high court’s registrar general seeking time to prepare and supply the paper book.
As per the case details, the Supreme Court-appointed special investigation team (SIT) had not filed any appeal against the trial court’s July 2016 verdict in which 24 persons were convicted and 36 others were acquitted. There were 66 accused who were put on trial for killing 69 persons in the society in Chamanpura area on February 28, 2002, including former Congress MP Ehsan Jafri.
While all the convicts appealed against their conviction in the high court, the victim-witnesses questioned the acquittal of majority of the 36 persons. Also, they have appealed for enhancement of sentence for those who were convicted for minor offences.
CASE FILE
- Six accused had died during the pendency of the trial and the verdict was delivered only with regard to 60 accused persons
- Out of the 24 persons who got convicted, 11 were awarded life imprisonment for murder.
- There were 12 accused who were punished for minor offences and imprisoned for five to 10 years. One person was awarded a jail term of six months.
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