It, however, kept on hold judgment in the Gulberg Society massacre case in which chief minister Narendra Modi was questioned by the SC-appointed special investigation team (SIT).
In a major development, the Supreme Court (SC) gave the go-ahead on Tuesday to trial courts in Gujarat to pronounce verdicts in the 2002 Sabarmati Express burning case of Godhra and seven cases of communal riots that followed.
It, however, kept on hold judgment in the Gulberg Society massacre case in which chief minister Narendra Modi was questioned by the SC-appointed special investigation team (SIT).
SC had stayed the trials in May last year.
Fifty-nine people, including several kar sevaks returning from Ayodhya, were burnt alive in the Sabarmati Express, while around 1,000 people belonging to a minority community were killed in the violence that followed.
The court also issued a notice to the Gujarat government on a petition seeking to change the judge conducting the Gulberg Society, a Muslim neighbourhood in Ahmedabad, case. Congress MP Ehsan Jafri was among the at least 39 people killed in the Gulberg massacre.
A bench of justices DK Jain, P Sathasivam and Aftab Alam deferred hearing in the case till December 2, when it may examine the volatile report submitted by the SIT headed by RK Raghavan on Monday. The report could give details of Modi’s questioning.
The judges also accepted human rights lawyer Prashant Bhushan’s plea to relieve him of the responsibility of amicus curiae. He had been assisting the court in the Gulberg case since a bench headed by justice KT Thomas passed an order to the effect.
Bhushan said he recused himself from the proceedings in view of the reservation expressed by the Gujarat government about his being amicus curiae. Bhushan has been vocal against the violence and state-engineered encounter killings in Gujarat.
Earlier, SIT had sought SC permission for further probe into the alleged involvement of former Gujarat minister G Zadafia and senior police officer MK Tandon in Jafri’s killing.
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