About us

Formed on April 1, 2002, the Citizens for Justice and Peace (CJP) was the objectives include:

-- To promote communal harmony in India.

-- To promote friendship amongst people belonging to different religious communities.

-- To combat all kinds of bigotry and intolerance which create inter-religious strife and differences among people.

-- To promote values that will encourage the development of peace, justice and reconciliation, by all means, in every place, among all peoples of India and in every sphere of society.

-- To build public opinion on the need for justice as an essential step towards reconciliation and peace.

-- To check threats to Indian democracy and the Rule of Law, whether by governments or political parties or other organisations, groups or individuals.

-- To make legal interventions in the Courts of Law through Public Interest Petitions or otherwise, to prosecute all those guilty of killing or maiming innocent citizens; and to assist others petitioning before the Courts for the redressal of grievances.

-- To set up or assist in setting up any lawyer/team of lawyers to effectively intervene in government appointed commissions of inquiry probing the causes of communal conflict or to identify the role of different agencies in prevention or promotion of violence.

-- To promote rationalism and tolerance and to promote religious and social reform including in particular reforms to improve the conditions of women and disadvantaged groups.

Founding Members/Board of Trustees, CJP:

Alyque Padamsee  (Communications/Advertising/Theatre)

Anil Dharkar  (Columnist, Writer)

Arvind Krishnaswamy, Treasurer  (Corporate Executive)

Fr. Cedric Prakash  (Human rights activist)

Cyrus Guzder   (CMD, AFL)

Raghunandan Maluste   (Corporate Executive)

Iftikhar M. Kadri, Vice-President   (Senior Architect)

Javed Akhtar   (Poet, Lyricist)

Javed Anand   (Communalism Combat)

Rahul Bose   (Film Actor)

Teesta Setalvad, Secretary   (KHOJ, Communalism Combat)

Late - Vijay Tendulkar, President   (Playwright)

Citizens For Justice & Peace in a Trust registered under The Bombay Public Trusts Act, 1950 with registration number F-25826/(Mumbai). 

Donations to Citizens For Justice & Peace is exempt from Income Tax under section 80-G of the Income Tax Act, 1961. Our 80-G registration number is DIT(E)MC/80-G/1047/2003/2003-04 Dated 23.12.03 and valid from 4.8.2003 to 31.3.2006.

Accounting Details About CJP

ONLINE DONATIONS
For Online Donations to Citizens for Justice & Peace  go to www.cjponline.org and go to the "DONATE" SECTION
Citizens for Justice & Peace
(Enjoys 80 G Exemption Under the Indian Income Tax Act)

 

Contact us at:

Citizens for Justice and Peace, P.O. Box 28253,
Juhu Post Office, Juhu, Mumbai - 400049.

Ph: 26602288 / 26603927 Fax: 26608252
e-mail: cjpindia@gmail.com / [email protected]

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Citizens for Justice and Peace (CJP), a citizens' group committed to the rule of law, was formed in Mumbai

on April 1, 2002 following the terrible communal carnage in Gujarat.

 

Calendar Of Achievements

(April 2002-February 2006)

interventions to ensure justice for the victims and punishment for the perpetrators of the Gujarat genocide.

Success Stories So Far:

1. Reluctant CM made to spend extra crores on relief

Action: Petition in Gujarat High Court (April 2002) to make the state government provide and pay for adequate relief to the 1.7 lakh people rendered homeless and destitute; petitions against government officials coercing relief camp managers into closing their camps even when victims have nowhere to go.

Result: High Court orders ensure that many relief camps stay open until September-October 2002; a highly reluctant state government made to spend several additional crores on relief measures.

Action: CJP sets up a Concerned Citizens Tribunal headed by three retired SC and (May 2002).

2002) that remains the most incisive document on the genocidal violence in Gujarat. Its recommendations have triggered a national campaign for institutional reform to prevent mass crimes in future.

3. SC Orders Transfer And Retrial Of Best Bakery Case

Action: CJP petitions the SC along with Zahira Sheikh, asking for a retrial of the Best Bakery massacre case outside Gujarat (August 2003).

Results: SC decides to monitor the progress of ALL the carnage related cases, appoints an amicus curiae (October 2003).

q In a historic and unprecedented judgement (April 2004), SC orders retrial of the Best Bakery case outside Gujarat (in Maharashtra).

q The DGP of Gujarat is directed (August 2004) to reopen and review the over 2,000 incidents of violence that had been closed by the state police.

4. No votes over dead bodies

Action: CJP submits a detailed and a well-documented memorandum and leads delegation of victims to the Chief Election Commissioner, Lyngdoh, challenging the ensure a free and fair trial. (August 2002).

normalcy and orders postponement of polls. Subsequently, when the CEC's decision was challenged in the SC, CJP filed written arguments before the Constitutional bench opposing snap polls in Gujarat.

Action: Four families from Ahmedabad, each of whom had lost one or more family member in coach S-6 of the Sabarmati Express train tragedy at Godhra, approach CJP for legal assistance. CJP files an application in SC (October 2003) for a retrial of the Godhra arson case outside Gujarat as the affected families did not expect to get justice in the state.

Result: The Godhra trial is stayed by the SC. The plea for re-investigation and transfer is pending.

6. Guilty cop Pandey shunted out of CBI

Action: CJP petitions SC (April 2004), former Ahmedabad Police Commissioner, PC Pandey (whose own role during the carnage needs investigation), as Deputy Director, CBI.

Result: The Union government moves PC Pandey out of the CBI (October 2004).

7. Compensation to victims of terrorism in J&K

Action: On the request of the families concerned, CJP pursues the J&K government asking for expeditious payment of compensation to the Mumbai-based Chandrakant Shah and Nirav Vakharia whose family members were killed or seriously injured in the bomb blast in a hotel in Pahalgam, Kashmir (June 2004).

Result: The affected families receive timely compensation.

Cases Pending in the Supreme Court... (pdf)