27, Mar 2007

The Supreme Court appointed Amicus Curiae Harish Salve submitted a note on 27th March 2007 on the background of the riot cases as well as on Gulberg Society, Ode, Sardarpura, Naroda Gaon and Naroda Patiya.

With regards to Gulberg, the Amicus Curiae notes that there are three different charge sheets recorded, two against the State of Gujarat and one against individual accused. The Amicus Curiae further notes that there are two primary issues present.

The first one deals with bias in the police and how they either refuse to record allegations against certain people and have done a shoddy job investigating. The second issue refers to the manner in which the accused were granted bail and the conduct of the public prosecutor which created apprehensiveness about whether justice would prevail.

Harish Salve further notes that there are already affidavits on record which address the first issue. There is already an application under section 173(8) of the CRPC before the sessions court, which along with sworn affidavits of Rupabehn Mody and 11 witnesses and survivors, alleges that in police statements of the witnesses the names of the accused were mentioned but these names vanish from investigation records and are not present in the charge sheet.

The Amicus Curae also notes a sworn affidavit mentions an alleged nexus between certain people involved in the violence and police officials. The allegations are that two CDS, which are now with the Nanavati Shah panel, contain records of all phone calls on the first five(worst days) of the riots. The allegations are that one accused, Dr. Jaydeep Patel, was in touch with the other accused as well as senior police officials including the police commissioner. Importantly, the Amicus Curae notes that the allegations need to be investigated by some agency other than those against whom the allegations are directed. Further, if the allegations mentioned above are established, they would place the matter in a completely different light, as to if they are found to be unsubstantiated.

Further details can be found here

Credit: Sabrangindia https://sabrangindia.in/indepth/gulberg-massacre-tortuous-journey-justice