Rs6 crore spent on Nanavati panel

The Gujarat government had spent, till 2010, more than Rs6 crore on the Nanavati commission of enquiry that was set up to investigate the Godhra train carnage and the riots of 2002. This has been revealed by the information provided the commission’s public information officer in response to an application under RTI.

Out of the Rs6 crore spent by the government, as much as Rs4.53 crore was used to pay the salary of the judges and officers of the commission since 2002.

On August 30 this year, city-based RTI activist Vinod Pandya had submitted an application seeking details of the commission’s expenses and the amount spent on it from 2002 to 2010.

As per the information provided to him, a total of 20 special public prosecutors have been appointed for the hearing since 2002. Out of these, only 10 were paid. The total amount spent on public prosecutors had reached Rs28 lakh by 2010.

Further, a total of Rs4.53 crore was spent on the salary of the judges and the staff while the rest of the money, described as “miscellaneous expenditure”, was incurred on the functioning of the commission in the last eight years.

The commission was appointed by the state government on March 3, 2002, under the Commission of Inquiry Act, after widespread communal riots broke out in the state following the Godhra train burning incident of February 27, 2002.