Special digests are IMC-USA news digest that covers topics of special interests. E.g. Vadodra violence, BJP corruption cases, etc.
All special digests for the year 2006.
'Defending India's freedom, democracy and pluralism'
Why is it so sensational?
The Best Bakery Case has come to symbolise the carnage -- and the alleged complicity of the state government in it -- that followed in Gujarat after the Sabaramati Express was set afire in Godhra in 2002 killing more than 50 pilgrims returning from Ayodhya.
In fact, in December 2003, after being rapped on the knuckles by the Supreme Court, the Gujarat state government admitted there were lapses in the investigations into the case and that the police had bungled in recording evidence.
Also, the Best Bakery, case, like the Jessica Lal case, was considered an open and shut case because there were eye-witnesses. And like the Lal case, it saw witnesses turning hostile, allowing the accused to walk free, till Friday's judgment.
Zaheera Sheikh, then a 19-year-old, who saw her family members burnt to death, became one of the two faces of the Gujarat riots that killed more than 1,000 people. The other being a tailor from Ahmedabad, Qutubuddin Ansari, whose picture -- weeping, with folded hands, begging for mercy -- became one of the haunting images of the riots...
Why did she keep changing her statement all the time?
In January 2005, a sting operation by the publication Tehelka alleged Madu Shrivastava had bribed her Rs 18 lakh (Rs 1.8 million) to change her statement.
What happens to Zaheera now?
The Mumbai court has sent notices to all the witnesses who had turned hostile -- including Zaheera -- asking them to explain why they should not prosecuted for perjury. Obviously, the last word has not been said in the case.
http://www.rediff.com/news/2006/feb/24best.htm
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Indian justice came to be tested in the Best Bakery riots case. In March 2002, 14 persons were massacred in the bakery in Vadodara. The fast track trial began on May 9 and was completed on June 29, 2003. Fast track justice is efficient, but not necessarily just. Traumatised by events and fearful of their future, witnesses - some innocently young - retracted their statements. Victims' families had no protection, no succour or support. About 36 of the 70 eyewitnesses withdrew in fear. The 21 accused were let off. We do not know who the culprits were...
What happened in the bakery case? The judge blamed the prosecution. The prosecution blamed the witnesses. The witnesses are caught in a frenzy of fear. Direct and indirect pressure - no less the witnesses' own premonitions of a living hell if they told the truth - led to the inconclusive judgment in which the Best Bakery killings became a crime committed by unknown accused. Is Indian investigative and trial justice incapable of unravelling responsibility for a ghastly massacre that took place in the public gaze? Could the judge not have used his power to call witnesses? Indian justice failed. But must it continue to do so? Surely, there is enough for the higher judiciary to intervene now. Otherwise, the failure will be complete.
Is India's 'best' justice good enough? Unfortunately, it has been put in doubt. Indian governance has shown an incapacity to deal with communal issues and protect the minorities. This is a serious charge reflecting on a serious fear in the minds of the minorities who belong to the greatest independent multi-religious and multi-cultural nation in the world.
http://www.thehindu.com/2003/07/25/stories/2003072502121000.htm
The Best Bakery carnage case will go down in history for two reasons other than the sensational change of testimony by key witness Zahira Sheikh.
First, the Best case pushed the Supreme Court to expand the scope of criminal jurisprudence by ordering the retrial, though the accused were acquitted both by the trial court and the Gujarat HC...
The landmark Bakery judgment had given hope to victims... The apex court termed the Best Bakery case an extraordinary case. The court was convinced that the prosecutor was trying to shield the rioters. It also found that the trial was a farce and the witnesses were intimidated.
"It is in the aforesaid extraordinary circumstances that the court not only directed a de novo trial of the whole case but made further directions for appointment of a new prosecutor with due consultation of the victims," said the SC.
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/971731.cms
What is a riot? Is it as explosion of events which simply happened for which no one is responsible?... It is a series of events for which people are culpable. It is easier for those who rule us to treat riots as unfortunate events which are best forgotten so as to hide what was real and blunt its poignancy by merging everything in the ‘noble’ task of reconstruction that lies ahead... Instead of perceiving riots in their gruesome truth of a series of murderous acts, they conveniently come to be perceived as socially unfortunate incidents for which no one to blame. Such a conception of riots is dishonest and irresponsible...
"What is truly important for India’s present and future in all these respects (i.e. territorial integrity, societal peace, democratic functioning, and even its status in a world of nation-states), is escape from the self-perpetuating traps of blame displacement and the complementary traps of maximizing and minimizing the significance of horrific violence. In short, it is necessary to fix responsibility and penetrate the clouds of deception, rhetoric, mystification, obscurity, and indeterminacy to uncover what can be uncovered, knowing full well that the whole truth can never be known, but that the evident actions and inaction of known persons, groups, organizations, political leaders, media, academics seeking causes, and patriots seeking comfort can be uncovered, exposed, and brought to book."...
India is the most diverse country in the world. Its Muslim population alone is the second largest in the world... If Indian governance is to survive in its pursuit of the greatest experiment in secular living that the world has ever known, it has to do more than wait for all this to happen. It has to keep India’s Hindu fundamentalists at bay. Such communalists would risk India to gain their ends and kill others in the name of riots for their indefensible purposes. The Best Bakery case goes to the root of Indian governance. There cannot be peace without justice.
A bakery was burnt in the Hanuman Tekri area of Vadodara on March 1, 2002 and along with that, a number of persons were killed or injured. Hanuman Tekri is located on Dabhoi Road on the outskirts of Vadodara. It is a lower middle class and poor neighbourhood. Most of the residents are Hindus; very few Muslim families live there. The basti consists of small houses and very narrow lanes. The houses mostly have tin roofs and very few are more than single-storey structures.
The Best Bakery was one of the few structures, which had more than one storey. The Muslim family owning the bakery had shifted to this area only six months prior to this incident. All other Muslims staying in the area had already left their houses on February 27. Only this family stayed on because Jayantibhai Chaiwala, who is an influential person in the area, assured them safety.
http://www.sabrang.com/cc/archive/2002/marapril/bestbakery.htm
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After three days of continuous violence in Ahmedabad, there was a substantial improvement in the situation on Saturday as the army staged flag marches and the police adopted a tough posture.
But violence spread elsewhere, as 35 people were burnt alive in Mehsana adding to the death toll that state government officials put at 300.
Unofficial estimates, however, have put the death figure at around 400...
In Vadodra, a family of seven was burnt alive when a mob set fire to a bakery in Wadi police station area. Twelve others were injured when police opened fire to quell the mob near the bakery...
Incidents of violence were also reported from Surat and Panchmal districts.
http://www.rediff.com/news/2002/mar/02train11.htm
27.2.2002 S.6 coach of Sabarmati Express train near Godhra Station burnt by miscreants killing 56 persons
28.2.2002 Bandh called by Vishwa Hindu Parishad and supported by the BJP. Widespread violence in Gujarat
1.3.2002 Best Bakery at Vadodara attacked by a Hindu mob of about 150 -200 persons from 8.30 P.M. till 10.00 A.M. on 2nd March, 2002. Police did not give any help. 14 persons died in the attack.
2.3.2002 Zaheera Sheikh, the main eye witness who lost family members during the carnage gave a statement to the Police naming some of the culprits who were from the locality. Various other eye witnesses also gave statements naming culprits.
2.3.2002 Zaheera gives press statements and media interviews naming the culprits. Petitioner No.1 also testifies before the National Human Rights Commission to the effect that she can identify the culprits.
21.3.2002 Zaheera testifies before the PUCL- Shanti Abhiyan team naming the culprits
27.3.2002 The first arrests made in respect of the case, that too, after the issue was raised at Delhi level.
1.4.2002 NHRC’s Report recommending that the investigation into the Best Bakery carnage be handed over to C.B.I.
May, 2002 Zaheera appears before the Concerned Citizens Tribunal, again identifying the culprits.
June, 2002 Charge Sheet filed in the Best Bakery case
June, 2002 Zaheera again makes a statement that though many of the culprits had been charge sheeted, one of the culprits she had named had not been included.
http://www.combatlaw.org/information.php?article_id=419&issue_id=16
Police on Monday filed a charge sheet against 21 accused allegedly involved in the Best Bakery case in which 12 persons were burnt alive in the Dabhoi road in Baroda on March one, during a bandh to protest against the Godhra carnage.
Nine of the twelve burnt alive in the Bakery belonged to a minority community.
An angry mob had persuaded the twelve victims to come down from the terrace of the bakery and later burnt them alive.
http://www.rediff.com/news/2002/jun/24train1.htm
Tens of panchnamas, dozens of visits to the police stations, scores of rounds of government offices for compensation and hundreds of narrations of her story later, Zahira Sheikh, the main witness in the Best Bakery massacre of March 1, sits resigned in her new house on Ajwa Road in Ektanagar on the outskirts of Vadodara.
She had not cried even on the day nine of her family and friends were killed at Best Bakery. If anything, her resolve is stronger. ‘‘I won’t marry till the accused are adequately punished,’’ she says.
Zahira’s only 17, but she’s seen it all: Abuses, threats, expressions of sympathy but no help, offers of help at a cost and a lot more.
http://www.indianexpress.com/full_story.php?content_id=19247
The first information report (FIR) was based on her complaint. At several points in time, she provided the police with detailed testimonies against the accused. The police took her statement soon after the incident, when she was admitted to hospital....
Right from the start, cases relating to the communal violence have been fraught with problems. Initially, the police refused to take down statements. When they did register complaints, they did not include all the details mentioned by the witnesses. They did not record the names of the accused mentioned by witnesses. Moreover, the police filed group FIRs instead of separate cases for each complaint. Already, the police have closed around half of the 4,252 cases, citing lack of evidence. These cases will not be tried in court. Other trials have also resulted in acquittals. In Panchmahal district, two tempos carrying refugees from Kadiad village in Sabarkantha were burned en route, killing 73 persons. The case was closed six months ago. "Not a single person was named as an accused, although witnesses had given the police names of the culprits. Around 50 families from Kadiad are still living in a relief camp in Modasa," says Suhel Tirmizi, human rights lawyer. Several accused are apparently `absconding'. However, they roam around freely in the villages, harassing Muslim survivors.
The police have the power to attach the property of those `absconding'. They did that for those accused of the Sabarmati Express massacre, but have not made much of an effort to arrest the riot accused or attach their property. The police have also charged those accused in the Godhra case under the Prevention of Terrorism Act (POTA). But none of the accused in the pogrom against Muslims has been charged under the Act.
http://www.flonnet.com/fl2014/stories/20030718003402800.htm
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Among other things, he said that there was an unpardonable delay in registering a First Information Report.
Secondly, those arrested, he said, had nothing to do with the carnage and some of them had even helped rescue 65 persons belonging to the minority community from the area around the Best Bakery.
The judge quoted one of the witnesses Lal Mohammed Shaikh, who resided close to the bakery.
Shaikh had told the court that he and 17 members of his family were rescued by some of the accused.
The judge was critical of the police for harassing innocents found at the site of a crime.
http://www.rediff.com/news/2003/jun/27guj.htm
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The unprecedented outrage of the Supreme Court of India at the brazen subversion of all civilised principles of justice by the elected state government of Gujarat echoed the collective anguish of large sections of the Indian people at the open partisanship and utter impunity of the people who run the state machinery.
The damning observations of the highest court in the land were made in the context of the Best Bakery case, which has justly captured national attention. However, this is only one of literally thousands of cases in which the system of justice has been cynically and efficiently subverted by state authorities in Gujarat, in the aftermath of the carnage of 2002. Of the 4,252 cases registered in connection with the mass violence, as many as 2,107 have been closed without even the issue of a chargesheet to the courts. In 36 cases, the accused have been acquitted after trial. In no case has the accused been punished....
The brazenly partisan exercise of state authority is most evident in the unapologetically discriminatory application of the draconian POTA exclusively against minorities. All 240 cases of POTA in Gujarat have been filed against minorities, and all but one of these has been filed against Muslims. Most of the POTA accused have languished for well over a year in prison without bail. In contrast, despite the brutal carnage which took more than 2,000 lives, not one of the accused have been booked by the state government under POTA.
For the first time in independent India, the state government refused to set up relief camps for the survivors of the brutal massacre. Relief camps set up by the battered community were forcefully disbanded by the state government but many survivors of the carnage are still too terrified to return to their homes in the face of a social and economic blockage. Compensation was arbitrary and a pittance, and again for the first time so soft loans were extended by any bank to assist people to rebuild their devastated homes.
There has been injustice and partisanship by state authorities in India in the past. But never in independent India have state authorities treated a segment of its citizens with such open consistent and elaborate discrimination, in defiance of every civilised principle of justice and the rule of law. The collective failure, of democratic institutions and citizens, to resist, diminishes and enslaves us all.
http://www.hindustantimes.com/
Even the blind can see in the conduct of the pogrom-related cases being tried in Gujarat that the malign force exerted by the official machinery and the political outfits sympathetic to it are making a monkey of the legal system.
Only four witnesses from the Satellite police station area turned up to depose before the Nanavati Commission probing the riots. None was from the neighbouring Ellisbridge area in which Muslim shops and houses were looted and burned. Two of the four who showed up praised the "timely action" of the police.
The recent acquittal of the 21 accused in the high profile Best Bakery case - in which one of the witnesses, Zahira Sheikh, went back on her first statement - is but a terrifying glimpse of what the legal system is up against. Zaheera was too terrified to speak the truth, as she publicly declared afterward. This, indeed, is the story all over Gujarat, and there can be little hope that the guilty can be brought to book under normal procedures. The judgment in the Best Bakery case was the 37th instance of Gujarat's fast track courts acquitting all the accused for want of reliable witnesses.
http://www.hindustantimes.com/
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"My name Zahira D/o Habibulla Abdul Rehman Sheikh, Age 18 years, occupation : House Work, Res. Hanuman Tekri, Best Bakery, Dabhoi Road, Vadodara...."
"On asking personally here at S.S.G. Hospital, I dictate my complaint facts that I have been living at the aforesaid address with my family for the last six months... a mob of 1000 to 1200 people was coming from towards the Ganeshnagar slum area and was shouting kill them and burn the bakery and we saw that from the window...."
"uptill morning the people of mob remained surrounding us and on being morning we begged pardon from them... Despite that they were not persuaded and at last as we got down, the people of mob tied the hands of my brothers and the workers of our bakery and they were saying that they would leave them after beating for some time. On saying so, they started hitting my both with brothers and workers with the swords, knives, iron rods etc which they had. And they were taking us all women towards the bushes of the jungle. At that time, they saw the police vans and therefore there occurred stampede and on police reaching there, they saved us...."
"In this mob, I saw that Jayanti... and his nephew Mahesh who is called Mafatiyo and Jayanti's nephew Munno and Pratap and Jayanti's son whose name I do not know and Thakkar who is an activist of our slum area and Kiran, a friend of Mafatiyo and Jeetu who lives in a street opp. to our house and Lalo, a fried of Mafitiyo and Painter who lives in front of Sindhi's shop opp. to our house etc. all these people were there among the mob. Where as others were also there whose name I don't know but I can identify some of them from the mob on seeing them."
"aforesaid persons in association with this mob have attacked our bakery and house and by hitting frequently with the sharp edged weapons killed the persons whose names are given... I have a complaint against them for lawful investigation. My witnesses are my family members and those found during investigation etc.
http://www.combatlaw.org/information.php?article_id=420&issue_id=16
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The committee appointed by the Supreme Court to probe the "flip-flop" by Best Bakery case star witness Zahira Sheikh has reportedly found that she was "financially induced". The committee's investigations also showed that Zahira was living in a locality in Vadodara under the protection of the VHP and Bajrang Dal.
This was revealed in an expose by Tehelka which claims possession of the contents of the report submitted by Supreme Court registrar-general BM Gupta and Delhi police joint commissioner Kanwaljit Deol on Thursday.
The committee also found that Zahira had been threatened and had "returned to Vadodara from Mumbai only because she had bought peace with her tormentors - the perpetrators of the Best Bakery carnage which claimed 14 lives, including those of her family", states Tehelka. Tehelka's earlier sting operation had revealed that Zahira had accepted Rs 18 lakh from BJP MLA Madhu Srivastava to turn hostile in the Vadodara court.
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/1211999.cms
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It is now alleged that Zahira Sheikh was paid off to change her testimony on the Best Bakery massacre. As we have argued in these columns, she should be tried for perjury. Zahira has failed all those fighting for justice in Gujarat, and more so, victims like her. It is worse if she, as alleged, has sold her victimhood for cash to absolve perpetrators of the gruesome murders at Best Bakery. However, her act raises disturbing questions about our administration and legal system. Despite the laudable efforts of the Supreme Court, the Gujarat government has done little to allay fears of the riot victims in order for them to trust the state in their quest for justice. Investigations by media have indicated that administrators and politicians conspired to prolong the riots and even abetted rioters. Shoddy investigation and farcical trials by local fast track courts in the Best Bakery massacre provoked the apex court to order a retrial outside Gujarat. But, the 'modern day Neroes of Gujarat' remain unmoved by the strictures. In the name of a popular mandate, they stalk the streets of Gujarat threatening and even offering bribes to riot victims and those who aid them. They hope that time and an indifferent state will tire out even the last dogged seeker of justice...
In the Best Bakery case, the investigation should now extend beyond the specifics of the incident on that fateful day and include the allegations of buy-offs and threats by the accused. Also, the prosecution should look beyond Zahira to nail the accused. A singular witness, that too an 18-year-old woman, is hardly the best bet to prove the complicity of powerful politicians in state-abetted violence. The state should provide protection to other witnesses from threats and ensure proper rehabilitation of riot victims to prevent a repeat of the Best Bakery trial. Justice for Gujarat riot victims will be complete only when the state wins back the trust of its citizens.
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/969266.cms
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The Gujarat Detection of Crime Branch (DCB) on Monday filed the chargesheet in the Best Bakery case - 12 people were burnt alive in the bakery and two were missing. It has ruled out any conspiracy while stating the intention was to cause loss of life and property of Muslims in retaliation to the Godhra attack.
The chargesheet names 21 accused and was filed in the court of Chief Judicial Magistrate N.B. Pithwa. It identifies all 21 arrested as the main accused from among the mob of 1,200-odd people involved but the name of Santosh Thakkar, who was accused by survivor Zahirabano, is missing....
The accused also includes a Muslim - Yasin Ali Khokhar. However, defence counsels, Shailesh Patel and Pravik Thakkar, said Khokhar's presence in the mob contradicts police theory that the "intention of the mob" was to cause loss of life and property to Muslims.
http://www.indianexpress.com/full_story.php?content_id=4914
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- Zaheera was provided police protection soon after she complained about Teesta to the district magistrate, Bhagyesh Jha. She left Mumbai 24 hours before she was to testify there. Why was she not given protection soon after the riots? Not one constable was deployed when the vulnerable Sheikh family was deposing before the Vadodara court in 2003. Why is Zaheera being moved from one secret location to another now that she has turned hostile again?
- Her advocate, Atul Mistry, sat next to her right through the press conference. When a journalist asked Zaheera about her earlier complaint against Madhu Srivastava, Mistry prevented her from replying and virtually whisked her away. Mistry is a junior of Rajendra Trivedi, who was defending the Best Bakery accused in Vadodara. Unwala, the other lawyer, is a junior of Gujarat High Court lawyer KJ Sethna, the younger brother of Justice BJ Sethna, who had upheld the acquittal of Best Bakery accused by the Vadodara fast-track court.
- After her stay at the Airport Hotel in Vadodara, Zaheera was put up at the Silver Oaks Resort in Ahmedabad. The resort is owned by a close friend of Gujarat Finance Minister Vajubhai Vala. TEHELKA posed as an event management company and was told by the Silver Oaks manager that the resort was owned by Om Prakash Agarwal, a relative of former BJP treasurer Ram Das Agarwal. He also said that Agarwal frequently entertained Vajubhai Vala at the resort.
Why did the state go out of its way to intimidate and buy Zaheera Sheikh? The politicians were not the only ones involved in the money game. So was Shailesh Patel, the lawyer defending the accused in the Best Bakery carnage. Why was the lawyer defending the accused in close contact with Madhu and Batthoo? When TEHELKA caught up with him to further corroborate the payoff, he told Bapu, "No, no. It has to be at least 10 lakh," in response to Bapu's assertion that Zaheera did not the promised amount. "And if she had got only this amount (Rs 2-3 lakh), her mother and two brothers would not have turned hostile," he added. He wasn't sure of the exact amount but knew that the deal was being struck.
http://www.tehelka.com/story_main10.asp?filename=ts010105The_Buying.asp&id=5
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Even as the Best Bakery trial gets under way here, the New York-based Human Rights Watch (HRW) has released a 30-page report documenting the intimidation and harassment of witnesses in cases relating to the Gujarat communal violence in 2002.
Titled "Discouraging Dissent: Intimidation and Harassment of Witnesses, Human Rights Activists and Lawyers," the report documents the experiences of those who have come forward to provide testimony about the communal conflagration. The report concludes that the Gujarat Government has created an "extremely hostile environment" that has "encouraged a climate of impunity." As a result, those identified as having participated in the violence are openly threatening activists and witnesses who want to pursue justice. "No credible witness protection programme has been established by the State Government, which seems more interested in protecting those responsible for the violence than witnesses and victims," concludes the report....
Teesta Setalvad, Mumbai-based human rights activist, who has diligently followed the Gujarat cases, has also received anonymous sexually abusive calls as well as unidentified men turning up at her office. Similarly, Father Cedric Prakash, Ahmedabad-based priest, who has worked for communal harmony has been targeted for attack and abuse. Several lawyers like Suhel Tirmizi and Huma Khan, who have taken on the riot-related cases, have received abusive anonymous phone calls and warnings. Tirmizi said: "Most lawyers in Gujarat are too scared to take up the riot related cases. They feel isolated and do not want to face threats... I used to oppose bail applications of the accused, which is when I was identified and later threatened."
http://www.thehindu.com/2004/09/24/stories/2004092402551200.htm
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"...In the larger interest of justice, it's necessary that not only justice should be done but it should appear to have been done. It can be hoped that the government will...expeditiously take appropriate decision to increase the confidence of the public in the administration of justice."
No, that isn't the Supreme Court slamming the Modi government last week. That's the Gujarat High Court in May when some victims filed a criminal complaint that in the Sardarpura riot case - in which 33 people were burnt alive-the public prosecutor was Dilip Trivedi, general secretary of the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP).
He continues to be public prosecutor in the case although after the court's strictures, he was pulled out from another case. Like him, several VHP-affiliated lawyers hold the key to justice for riot victims across the state....
Vadodara: 603 FIRs; Sanjay Bhatt, one of the newly appointed public prosecutors asked to handle riot cases, is the nephew of VHP city unit president Ajay Joshi and is also a VHP advocate. Incidentally, Joshi defended the 21 accused in the Best Bakery case which is now under SC scrutiny.
http://www.indianexpress.com/full_story.php?content_id=31837
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The appointment of several public prosecutors, allegedly owing allegiance to the Vishwa Hindu Parishad, by the BJP-run Gujarat government has stirred a hornet's nest with some legal experts fearing "persecution" rather than "prosecution" in several post-Godhra communal riots cases to come up for trial.
Names of some newly-appointed public prosecutors and some senior ones handling crucial Prevention of Terrorism Act (POTA) cases have recently cropped up for their alleged proximity to the saffron outfits, especially after the public outcry over acquittal of 21 accused in the Best Bakery carnage.
Chetan Shah, said to be a staunch VHP supporter is one such public prosecutor from the city, who was recently appointed to handle some of the post-Godhra communal riot cases, sources said.
Sources told PTI that Shah himself was chargesheeted in a case of rioting in 1987 during which nine people of the minority community were killed. He was, however, acquitted.
"How can the state government appoint an advocate as a public prosecutor and that too in such sensitive cases when he has had a criminal record in a communal matter?" asked a senior High Court lawyer who did not wish to be named....
Sources added that other prominent advocates who were known for their proximity to the ruling political party and the VHP were Raghuvir Pandya, who conducted proceedings in the Best Bakery case and had earlier fought the Vadodara Municipal elections with the BJP support.
Another name that has emerged is additional public prosecutor from Vadodara, Sanjay Vyas, who is nephew of VHP city unit president Ajay Joshi....
Says retired Justice BJ Diwan, "Though it is the prerogative of the state government to appoint these prosecutors, there is a fear that there may be persecution instead of prosecution in the cases."
http://www.hindustantimes.com/
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The Best Bakery case highlights the need for new changes and use of old provisions
"We are prima facie of the opinion that the criminal justice delivery system is not in sound health." So said a three-judge Supreme Court bench headed by the chief justice on Friday, as it dealt with the NHRC's special leave petition on the Best Bakery case....
But we also need to ensure existing laws and processes work. In the Best Bakery case, Judge Mahida failed to avail himself of statutory remedies that exist: Such as the power to hold proceedings in camera, or to recall and re-examine witnesses, or to order further examination. No, we do not need to invent a new justice system. Most of all, we need to keep alive our sense of scandal at the miscarriage of justice, each and every time it occurs.
http://www.indianexpress.com/full_story.php?content_id=29337
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India is evidently a democracy... As such, it's a reasonable expectation that this simple routine - the so-called due process of law - will be carried out here in all criminal cases. On the face of it, this is exactly what happened in the infamous Best Bakery case in Vadodara in which 14 people were burnt alive in post-Godhra mob violence.
Best Bakery was among the worst cases of violence in the aftermath of Godhra. It was also the first to come up for hearing. Long before the 44-day trial ended, it was apparent that the case was something of a sham: Of the 120 witnesses listed by the prosecution, more than a third never made it to the box. Of the 73 who did, more than half turned hostile.
At the end of the fast-court trial, however, the case has been summarily thrown out and all 21 accused released because "there was not an iota of evidence" against them. Worse, the judge has accused the police of fabricating evidence to frame "innocents". The verdict implies that the police failed - quite deliberately - to apprehend those actually involved in carrying out the horrific outrage.
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/49893.cms
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...the recent tendency in the state to gloss over unpalatable facts. As much was evident from a special court's decision in the Best Bakery case to accept the changes in testimony by witnesses without probing the reason and thereby letting the accused go scot-free, even though the phenomenon of witnesses turning hostile is ordinarily bound to raise suspicions about intimidation. The high court's subsequent endorsement of this decision by the lower court is also
noteworthy. The effect is to draw a veil over wrong-doing.
http://www.hindustantimes.com/
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The judge asked her if she could identify any one of the accused lined up in the court. She gave the lot a cursory look at them and then, without a blink, said "No." This was Zahira Sheikh, complainant and key witness in to the gruesome Best Bakery murders, which claimed 14 lives in the post-Godhra frenzy. Nine of the dead were her relatives.
"I shall not marry till the accused are adequately punished," Zahira had told me when I had met her just a few months ago for a piece I was doing to mark the first anniversary of the riots. "After tens of panchanamas, dozens of visits to police stations and scores of appearances before government officials, I'e nothing left to lose," she stated, with steel in her eyes...
The public prosecutor flashed a wry smile towards the group of defence lawyers before starting the cross examination. A very rare sight it must be when the advocates on both sides nod agreement in public. The cross examination continued for about 15 minutes and, then, it was all over. The defence counsels refused to ask any questions and sat happily in their chairs, their job already done by the prosecution. Zahira Sheikh then ran out of the court room and met the supportive local BJP MLA, after which she was not allowed to speak to anyone... The MLA who was the part of the mob baying for blood, is today her protector.
http://www.indianexpress.com/full_story.php?content_id=24203
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The Gujarat government has finally admitted that witnesses in the Best Bakery case turned hostile because they were either coerced or won over. It has further assured the Supreme Court that it will amend its appeal challenging the acquittal of the accused, seek retrial of the case and a direction for further investigation to collect more evidence. The Supreme Court extracted this admission from the state government after making it very clear that it was not at all happy about the manner in which the case had been disposed of by the Gujarat government. In fact, the chief secretary of Gujarat, Praveen Kanubhai Laheri, and the director general of police K. Chakraborty were both summoned to the apex court and questioned by the Bench as to why the witnesses had turned hostile. Chief justice V.N. Khare, and Justices Brijesh Kumar and S.B. Sinha constituted the Bench that has shaken the Gujarat government into admitting the truth. The apex court has again demonstrated the impartiality of the judiciary, and its power to protect the people of India as well as her Constitution....
The media has carried detailed reports of how witnesses did not depose in the case, and those who did speak out were terrified for their lives. The Gujarat government had denied harassing or coercing witnesses, but the manner in which they all disappeared from view raised serious questions about the state administration, in particular the role of the police.
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'Kaanpte kaanpte jhooth bola tha court mein'
Barely one week after the court set free all 21 accused in the Best Bakery massacre in the Gujarat riots, Sehrunissa Sheikh, one of the main witnesses and wife of the bakery owner, has come out and told The Sunday Express that she lied in court ‘‘trembling with fear’’ for her life. She is still afraid of being killed, she says, but if she gets ‘‘support,’’ she will speak the truth.
Sehrunissa’s startling admission, in a tape-recorded interview, puts a question mark on the entire case....
The Sunday Express met Sehrunissa, 50, at her house in the Ekta Nagar slum on the outskirts of the city. ‘‘Dehelte dehelte kaanpte kaanpte jhooth bola tha court mein,’’ she said. (Trembling with fear, we lied in court).
And she says she wasn’t the only one to do so. In fact, out of the 73 witnesses who deposed, as many as 41 turned hostile. ‘‘Just as we lied, others also lied. Everyone lied. Who knows why? They may also have been under pressure. The pressure must have come from where we used to stay (Hanuman Tekri). Nobody supported us.’’
She doesn’t name BJP MLA Madhu Shrivastava, who accompanied Zaheera on the day she turned hostile but keeps referring to a ‘‘daadhiwala aadmi’’(a bearded man)....
But Sehrunissa said the pressure was intense: ‘‘Apne ko dhamki bhi aayi ki tum bole to tumko yahan aane nahin denge. Mar denge. (We received threats that if we speak we will not be allowed to come here. We would be killed).’’
She said some of the threats came through another critical witness in the case, a local scrap-dealer Lal Mohammed, who also turned hostile.
http://www.indianexpress.com/full_story.php?content_id=27106
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Nothing has quite demonstrated the Modi administration's indifferent attitude to the plight of the minorities more starkly than its request to the Supreme Court to modify its earlier directive on protecting the riot witnesses.
The government has expressed its inability to provide such protection on the grounds that it cannot spare enough policemen for the job since they have to be deployed in the "large number of villages, towns and cities' which are "communally sensitive". This acknowledgement has revealed the chief minister" exercise in deception when he wrote to President A.P.J. Abdul Kalam in protest against the National Human Rights Commission's unflattering references to the Best Bakery case. In that letter, Mr Modi had wondered why such a fuss was being made over "some stray incidents" - his characterisation of the riots which lasted for a month and half and claimed 2,000 lives. Yet, it is now admitted that a "large number of villages, towns and cities" are still experiencing the aftermath of those "stray incidents".
http://www.hindustantimes.com/
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A few months after the Gujarat riots, President APJ Abdul Kalam was touring the relief camps for riot victims, with Chief Minister Narendra Modi, when a burkha-clad woman walked up to him and quietly handed him a copy of the March 2002 issue of the Mumbai-based journal Communalism Combat. The 150-page issue was the first detailed documentation of how violence was perpetrated across Gujarat’s 19 districts. The co-editor of the journal, Teesta Setalvad, had single-handedly documented the violence.
Four years later, the case has come a full circle as one of the star witnesses against the Modi government, Zahira Sheikh, stands in the dock as a “self-condemned liar” and has drawn a sentence of one year imprisonment and a fine of Rs 50,000. And Setalvad, after many threats of death and violence, stands vindicated by the courts....
The 42-year-old journalist-turned-activist’s fight against communalism began way back in 1983, when she and her husband Javed Anand formed a pressure group, Journalists Against Communalism. After Mumbai’s riots, Teesta, the daughter of a lawyer and social activist, started Communalism Combat. Later she formed Citizens for Justice and Peace, with prominent Mumbaikars such as Javed Akhtar and Alyque Padamsee to fight the battle against communalism. She is also the winner of several awards, including the Chameli Devi Jain award for outstanding woman journalist and the Dutch Prince Claus award of 2002.
Setalvad’s focus now is on getting the other 13 cases transferred out of Gujarat. She sees the judgement in the Best Bakery case as the beginning of an overhaul of the system. “These cases are not just about the Gujarat violence. They are also about bringing about systemic change. They are about the root problems plaguing the system — of witness protection, police reforms and the role of the state public prosecutors.”
All the 21 accused in the Best Bakery carnage in Vadodara in the post-Godhra violence in Gujarat were on Friday acquitted by a local court for lack of evidence.
Additional Sessions Judge H U Mahida feared the police may have implicated innocents.
This is the first verdict in a case relating to the post-Godhra communal violence.
Twelve persons were burnt alive in the bakery and two were reported missing on March 1, 2002 during a bandh called by the Vishwa Hindu Parishad and the Bajrang Dal after 59 people, most of them returning from Ayodhya, were burnt alive on board the Sabarmati Express near Godhra railway station on February 27 the same year...
Nobody from the complainants' side was present in the court premises when the judgment was pronounced.
http://www.rediff.com/news/2003/jun/27guj.htm
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What's behind communal massacres like the Best Bakery? H U Mahida, the honourable judge, who acquitted all the 21 accused in the case has an answer, in fact several answers: the British policy of divide and rule; the emphasis on industrialisation at the expense of villages; frustration among "meritorious" people because of reservations....
What went unread is most revealing. For, nowhere in his entire judgment does Mahida deal with the possibility of prime witness Zaheera Sheikh and her mother turning hostile out of fear. On July 6, Zaheer's mother Sehrunissa first told The Sunday Express how she lied in court afraid for her life.
Instead, from the 17th page on, Mahida holds forth on history and society in a bid to bolster his verdict. However, he does admit that not one conviction in such a gruesome case "is beyond the comprehension of the common man."
Consider these:
- He argues that he could not have done anything to save the case. Why?
Because under his judicial system "bequeathed by the British," a court goes "entirely by evidence on record." From here, he takes a leap, defining a court in very unusual terms. "The courts are," he says, "truly speaking, evidence courts and not courts of justice."
In an apparent attack on Nehru and his colleagues, Mahida says: 'They accepted the partition and waited for the Britishers to go so that they can jump onto the kursi and, neglecting burning issues, become world figures."
In a further swipe, Mahida says those leaders made "a major mistake by blindly copying the Soviet system in a bid to make India a highly industrialised state.... Villages started to crumble and cities began to overflow with people."
http://www.countercurrents.org/comm-mitta200703.htm
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Gujarat's Best Bakery case shows the criminal justice system at its worst
Only one fact survived the 44-day trial in a fast track court. The fact of the carnage. Fourteen innocent people were burnt alive for sure, that day at the Best Bakery near Vadodara, in a Gujarat convulsed by riots. The rest is a phantom mob. At the end of a case in which it often seemed that the defence counsels' job was being done better by the prosecution, in which the prime witness was escorted in and out of court proceedings by a "benefactor" MLA before she turned hostile and untraceable, and in which other hostile witnesses identified the accused as their "saviours" when they didn't refuse to identify them at all, justice has been reduced to a ghost of itself. It will return to haunt the nation....
The tidy acquittal of the accused in this case is a betrayal of faith. It must sound a nation-wide alarm. There wasn't even "an iota of evidence", lamented the judge, to convict the 21 accused. It must be asked whether it was because the witnesses were silenced by fear and coercion. Or due to the deliberately botched investigation that, as trial judge H.U. Mahida pointed out in his bitter 24-page judgement, is a common feature of all riot cases ... Gujarat 2002 must be rescued from ending up like Delhi 1984 or Bombay 1993. Because the burden of unrequited justice is becoming too heavy for the nation.
http://www.indianexpress.com/full_story.php?content_id=26698
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The acquittal of all the 21 accused in the Best Bakery case is prima facie a 'miscarriage of justice', the National Human Rights Commission chairman, Justice A S Anand, said on Wednesday.
"The Gujarat government must appeal against the verdict and if it does not, the relatives of the victims, complainants, can also seek permission of the court and file an appeal against the acquittal," he told NDTV 24x7 channel...
About the role of the police during the post-Godhra riots, the NHRC chief said, "It is under question because it was one of those cases that the commission had earlier recommended to be handed over to the CBI (Central Bureau of Investigation)."
Asked whether the case should be handed over to the CBI, Anand said, "The high court can direct it. Even the Gujarat government can make a request to the high court."
Asked whether there is a need for fresh inquiry into the case, he said, "Yes, certainly."...
The NHRC chief regretted that the biggest problem in ensuring justice for riot victims is lack of political will, and said, "If the state government wants it, then justice can always be done."
http://www.rediff.com/news/2003/jul/02guj.htm
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"Trembling with fear, we lied in court," admits Sehrunissa Sheikh, a week after all 21 accused in the Best Bakery case were acquitted by a fast-track trial court. How strange those words sound. Trembling with fear?
In court? Correct us if we are wrong. Isn't a courtroom supposed to be a safe haven for the wronged, isn't it supposed be the appointed site in a civil society where victims can air their testimonies without fear or foreboding and seek justice? Isn't is supposed to be a forum where the fearful can claim reassurance? ...
To understand what Sehrunissa's words mean for our criminal justice system, remember that those legal arguments are tossed back and forth in an atmosphere surcharged with fear. Remember that the reassuring rhythm of legalese is often not carried beyond the courtroom's hallowed precincts by victims of violence.
If outside there is intimidation, beyond the safeenclave of the court also lies fear. That must be the lesson for all those who profess to be seeking justice - whether they be in the police or whether they be concerned citizens. As a host of other Gujarat riots cases proceed in court, as many other cases related to the 1984 and 1993 riots drag on, witnesses must be re-assured - with physical security and legal back-up.
http://www.indianexpress.com/full_story.php?content_id=27166
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A day after describing the acquittal of all the 21 accused in the Best Bakery case in Gujarat as a 'miscarriage of justice', the National Human Rights Commission on Thursday decided to send a three-member team to Vadodara to 'inspect the records of the case and examine the judgment'.
"We have given orders and the NHRC will send a team headed by Registrar General Ajit Bharihoke," NHRC Chairman Justice A S Anand said in New Delhi.
The team has been asked to submit a report within a week, he said.
The other members of the team are Deputy Inspector General (Investigation) Sudhir Chowdhary and Special Rapporteur in the NHRC, P G J Nampoothiri.
"As far as the NHRC is concerned, we will give all assistance to whoever wants it," he said in reply to a question on his suggestion that the state government should appeal against the verdict.
http://www.rediff.com/news/2003/jul/03guj.htm
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The NHRC's activism is immensely reassuring. Of course, there are bound to be obstacles in the course it has so bravely set out on. Questions will be raised, substantive and procedural. As this paper has pointed out, the NHRC's step is unconventional, unprecedented. So far, retrials are ordered by the first court of appeal, and not the apex court. They happen at the behest of the accused, not the prosecution. And, in this case, it isn't even strictly the prosecution. The Modi government, remember, has reacted to the acquittal of the accused with resounding silence. No, it may not be easy. But the NHRC must stay the course. Because, at the end of it, it may have proved that the institutions of justice are not deaf to the tremulous fear in the voice of Sehrunissa Sheikh, mother of prime complainant Zaheera Sheikh, who told this paper: "Kaanpte, kaanpte jhooth bola tha court mein". It may yet provide it with the opportunity to live up to the despite-it-all hope in Zaheera Sheikh's decision to come out of hiding and demand a retrial. It will, hopefully, make up for the inexcusable helplessness of civil society organisations so far - including the NHRC. All watched justice being miscarried in Gujarat.
http://www.indianexpress.com/full_story.php?content_id=28703
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A National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) team re-examining what has come to be known as the Best Bakery case arrived here on Tuesday to protests from political groups and local lawyers but praise from rights activists.
Members of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) described the NHRC's one-day visit as "uncalled for" and with a "malicious intention" of tarnishing the image of Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi.
A group of local lawyers owing allegiance to the ruling BJP protested before the NHRC team, saying its visit had vitiated "peaceful and harmonious" relations in the state.
Human rights activists, however, expressed the hope that moral pressure from the NHRC would help secure justice for the hundreds of hapless people who were killed, raped and maimed by fanatic mobs during the sectarian violence last year....
NHRC chairman Justice A.S. Anand, who decided to send a team to Gujarat, had described the acquittal of all the accused as a "miscarriage of justice".
Leader of the newly formed Vadodara Jan Adhikar Sangathan, lawyer Avadhoot Sumant, said the organisation was contemplating moving the Gujarat High Court to initiate contempt of court proceedings against the NHRC for Anand's statement.
http://www.newindpress.com/Newsitems.asp?ID=IEH20030708143321
The National Human Rights Commission on Thursday petitioned the Supreme Court for a retrial outside Gujarat in the Best Bakery and four other 'serious' cases relating to the 2002 riots.
The commission's decision came more than a month after a fast- track court in Vadodara acquitted all the 21 accused in the Best Bakery case and a public outcry following statements by two women, Sahrunissa and Zaheera Sheikh, that they lied during evidence in the case due to fear of threat to their lives.
'Deeply concerned about the damage to the credibility of the criminal justice delivery system and negation of human rights of victims', the NHRC filed a special leave petition in the apex court with a prayer to set aside the impugned judgment of the trial court.
It sought a direction for further investigation by an independent agency.
http://in.rediff.com/news/2003/jul/31best.htm
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The National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) on Saturday hailed the conviction of nine people in the retrial of the Best Bakery case related to the 2002 Gujarat riots as a "triumph of justice".
NHRC chairman AS Anand also welcomed the perjury notice to main witness Zahira Sheikh for retracting her testimony.
"The verdict is a triumph of justice. It will restore confidence of the common man in rule of law," Anand said.
A special court in Mumbai on Friday found nine people guilty of killing 14 people in an arson attack on Vadodara's Best Bakery in 2002.
http://www.hindustantimes.com/news/181_1635347,001301170000.htm
ON September 12, after going through the text of the appeal filed by the Gujarat government in the High Court against the trial court's acquittals in the Best Bakery case, the Supreme Court asked the Additional Solicitor-General appearing for Gujarat, Mukul Rohtagi: "Is this an appeal? Even counsel with one year's experience will not draft such an appeal. It appears to us that it is eyewash. It is just eyewash and nothing else. We will not be silent spectators. We will act if the State keeps silent before the High Court."...
The appeal, which angered the Bench (Criminal Appeal No.956 of 2003 in The State of Gujarat vs Rajubhai Dhamirbhai Bariya and others) mentions 20 "grounds" to show why the order of acquittal should be set aside. But none of them seeks a retrial of the case or further investigation... The appeal suggested as though the State government wanted the High Court to direct the trial court to examine the evidence submitted by the prosecution afresh, even though the trial court had concluded that there was not an iota of evidence, which could be legally accepted and which even remotely connected the accused with the charges levelled against them.
The August 7 appeal seemed to emphasise the loss of property suffered by the victims, rather than loss of lives. The killings were mentioned towards the end of the petition, which identified only 11 of those killed (rather than 14).
http://www.flonnet.com/fl2020/stories/20031010003703800.htm
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The National Human Rights Commission had petitioned the Supreme Court to intervene in the case, where witness after witness was turning hostile to the point where the accused were let off by the lower courts. The apex court has also made it very clear to the Gujarat government that it would not allow the mistake made before the trial court, to be repeated before the high court. The additional solicitor general Mukul Rohatgi assured the Supreme Court that the state government would take the necessary measures.
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The state's counsel, Additional Solicitor General Mukul Rohatgi ... in a reference to the massive mandate Modi received after the riots, said, ``He is democratically elected.''....
This prompted Chief Justice of India V N Khare reacted sharply saying ``Democracy does not meant you will not prosecute anyone.''
Khare was equally dismissive of Rohatgi's strenuous efforts to elevate the subversion of law in Gujarat to the status of a general systemic failure in all
riot cases ``for the last 40 years'' throughout the country.
Citing the example of the 1984 massacre of Sikhs, Rohatgi said ``the malady in our system is such that the guilty persons in riot cases are mostly not punished.''
The court questioned, ``Are you saying the rioters in Gujarat should also be acquitted because of this malady?''....
Rohatgi repeatedly said that the law requires to be amended to remove the
lacunae which help the riot accused get away.
At one point, the apex court took Rohatgi's submission as a gratuitous attempt to blame the collapse of the Best Bakery case on the trial judge. ``We have absolute faith in our courts. If the Government does not bring facts and evidence before the court, what can it do other than acquitting the accused,'' the bench said.
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This lack of remorse has now become institutionalised. The Best Bakery case has shown that the State is simply not interested in ensuring that the killers and rapists are brought to justice. And if newspaper stories do not exaggerate, then at too many places in Gujarat, Hindus are running a concerted boycott of Muslim businessmen, artisans and casual labourers that is intended to drive them further into destitution.
In sum, Gujarat has opened a new chapter in India’s history. Each and every institution designed to safeguard pluralism has been subverted to do the opposite. To cap it all, by their tacit acquiescence in all of this, Prime Minister Vajpayee, Deputy Prime Minister Advani and all the other stalwarts of the NDA have made the Indian State an accomplice.
If history has anything to teach us, it is that in South Asia, a State that forswears pluralism will not survive for long. In recent weeks, the storm signals have multiplied. Not long ago, the army unearthed documents in the terrorist redoubt of Hilkaka in Kashmir that showed that at least 40 Gujarati youth had been recruited by the Lashkar-e-Tayyeba and sent there for training in terrorist operations. Imran Rehman Khan, who is implicated in an earlier bombing and was captured by the Maharashtra police a few weeks ago, has confessed that the LeT has been recruiting
terrorists not only in India but from among Indian Muslims working in the Gulf and Saudi Arabia, with the express purpose of taking revenge for the killings in Gujarat.
http://www.hindustantimes.com/
"The accused have been acquitted and one of the reasons for acquittal is that I had turned hostile in the court. I am making this affidavit in order to narrate what actually happened on March 1, 2002 as also what transpired in the court on May 17, 2003."
"My statements were taken on a number of occasions by the police. But on no ocassion was I given a copy of any of these statements. It was only after one month, after I took my complaint about the refusal of the local police to make any arrests of the accused to New Delhi that the Vadodara police arrested some of the accused...."
"The State Counsel asked me 3-4 times if I could identify the accused whom I had named in the statement. I said no because I was under pressure."
"The next question that was put to me, 'Do you recognize these people sitting here?' These were the accused whom I had identified earlier. They were laughing, smiling and smoking and I said, 'No'...."
"I just was in a dilemna as the lives of my surviving members and no support were put before me. My decision to tell the truth or endanger all their lives was it a decision I could make?. I felt sorrow. I felt regret.
I knew what impact my statements would have on the case. I knew that the implication of saying no that day would be very serious, would raise a lot of questions. However somehow I had the strong feeling that somebody would come and ask me why I did what I did. I wanted justice and wanted to see them punished. The important thing is tody that I am getting a support from these Bombay based group. So I feel I can go through this struggle."
"I had to choose between the two. I feel very very regretful about the fact that I had to do this because I felt no support at that time I had to chose my family members and I had to desert my testimony and that means those murderers could do to anybody again but the moment I stepped out of the box I had this tremendous feeling of loss and regret and I felt that if only I would have had that support I would not have done this."
http://www.combatlaw.org/information.php?article_id=429&issue_id=16
BY REPRIMANDING THE Gujarat Government for not showing seriousness in its appeal against the acquittal of the 21 accused in the Best Bakery burning case, the Supreme Court has validated the apprehension of the National Human Rights Commission and several non-governmental organisations that the victims of the Gujarat carnage in 2002 would not get justice under the Narendra Modi dispensation in the State. The three-judge Bench, headed by Chief Justice V.N. Khare, went to the extent of asking the Modi Government to quit if it was unable to prosecute the guilty in the case. In making such strong remarks against the State Government, the Supreme Court appears to have been provoked by the manner in which the prosecution conducted the case in the fast track trial court in Vadodara. The Bench specifically referred to the failure of the prosecution to cross-examine witnesses who had turned hostile and expressed lack of faith in the prosecution. But more importantly, the apex court described the appeal filed by the State Government as an "eyewash" and pointed to the possibility of collusion between the Government and the prosecution in subverting the cause of justice. While no one expects Mr. Modi to heed the Opposition demand and step down, the `collusion' remark pins the responsibility on him to prove there was no mala fide in the Government's handling of the case....
All this points to what was clear from the beginning: unless a retrial is ordered, allowing witnesses like Zaheera Sheikh another opportunity to depose in circumstances that are not intimidating or hostile, the Best Bakery case is guaranteed to end in miscarriage of justice.
http://www.thehindu.com/2003/09/16/stories/2003091601161000.htm
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Cussedness again marks the Gujarat govt's counter affidavit on the riot cases
The Modi government ... chose to display a characteristic imperviousness.... The tone and tenor of the counter-affidavit it filed to the NHRC's Special Leave Petition which had sought, among other things, a retrial of the Best Bakery case outside the state, is revealing.
Not only did the state government imply that the apex court directive, ordering it to provide "full and complete" protection to witnesses and their relatives, was unenforceable - it cites the security demands of the festival season as a major constraint - it launched a broadside against the NHRC, accusing it of "rushing" to the Supreme Court with a "misconceived petition" influenced by "media reports". The government claims that it had offered protection to the over 1,000 witnesses in the nine serious cases shortlisted by the NHRC but the offer was largely refused. And, as for the apex court direction that it should indicate whether it has taken any action against those who are said to have coerced witnesses into changing their statements, the state government merely pointed out that no such instance has come before it. This is a cynical response, addressing the letter of the Supreme Court direction, not its spirit.
The direction had clearly mentioned that the apex court is "prima facie of the opinion that the criminal justice delivery system is not in sound health" , because of several factors that it went on to enumerate � including the apathy of the police to record proper reports, their general conduct towards the victims, faulty investigation, and so on. Nowhere in the Gujarat state's
counter affidavit is there an attempt to address these issues. Even its appeal filed in the High Court against the acquittals in the Best Bakery case appears to have been provoked more by the NHRC's action rather than any desire to ensure that justice is indeed done. The appeal was filed just before the NHRC's petition came up before the Supreme Court!...
Given this totally uncooperative response, this adamant resistance to correction, the arrogance that marks official response, is it any wonder that many in the state despair of justice ever being done with regard to the cases involving the riots of March 2002?
http://www.indianexpress.com/full_story.php?content_id=30977
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It is easier for a whole caravan of camels to pass through the eye of a needle than for victims of communal violence to get justice in the country. This is irrespective of which political party is in power....
Gujarat is only the latest of the blots on our pretenses to secularism. Right from the beginning it was clear that the victims would not get justice. The Modi government was quick enough to arrest suspects in the Godhra massacre under POTA. But did not show any similar enthusiasm in the alleged retaliatory killing of which the worst example was the Best Bakery case.
The Gujarat government's totally partisan attitude stood exposed when all the accused in the Best Bakery case were acquitted because the key witnesses turned hostile. Unfortunately for the Modi government one of the key witnesses a brave young lady escaped to Mumbai and went public on how she and other key witnesses were bullied and intimidated into turning hostile.
The likelihood now is a retrial will be ordered on the intervention of the Supreme Court. But that is not the core issue. The core issue is that neither of the two major political parties in the country or for that matter the other parties have shown any willingness to even take a firm stand against communal violence, let alone act against the criminal elements irrespective of their religions affiliation.
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Now that the NHRC has made its courageous move, the nation looks to the court
It is rare that the system is given another chance to correct a deliberate injustice. And, of course, it doesn't all depend on the NHRC alone. The ball is now with the court. Down the years, even as the credibility of almost all democratic institutions has been steadily eroded, the Supreme Court has often intervened and acted in ways that have provided recourse, and restored faith. This moment calls upon the court to do so once more. To uphold the NHRC's plea. And thereby to reaffirm that a fair trial is a constitutional imperative and a fundamental human right. A nation looks to the court.
http://www.indianexpress.com/full_story.php?content_id=28703
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Some recent acquittals of persons who wield power have undermined the credibility of the criminal justice system. It is time for the Supreme Court to step in and effect a course correction.
IT is an interesting time for those who have been closely watching our criminal justice scene. Several things have happened in the past few weeks that evoke conflicting emotions: despair (arising from dubious executive decisions) and optimism (flowing from categorical judicial pronouncements).
Perhaps, the most bizarre of recent events is the action of Zahira Sheikh, the main complainant in the Best Bakery case, to go back on her earlier affidavit to the Supreme Court seeking re-trial of the case outside Gujarat. It was in response to her prayer that the Supreme Court had ordered the re-trial now in progress at a Mumbai Court. Zahira was to depose there shortly. It is reported that she has been elusive in accepting the summons to appear before that court....
All criminal justice agencies, including the apex court, should be rightfully incensed at Zahira's extremely strange conduct. Her two different versions of the incident are proof enough that she has lied under oath on one of the occasions. This calls for the utmost condemnation, and there is a justified demand that she be prosecuted for perjury. I am somewhat sorry for her. She is apparently under immense pressure to shift her stand constantly. Several forces could be at work to ensure that she is totally discredited and justice is denied to the victims of the Vadodara outrage. It is difficult to prove that the criminal elements that are trying to obstruct justice have a nexus with those in authority. It will, however, be a mockery of the exalted system if such elements are allowed to succeed. All over the country, there have been so many acquittals in the recent past of those who wield power. These have almost totally undermined the credibility of criminal justice agencies. I am sure the apex court is not amused over the turn of events, not only in the Best Bakery case but in other cases as well. I have the greatest confidence that it will act swiftly to do some course correction.
In the ultimate analysis, no major damage may be caused to the prosecution by Zahira's antics. There are several other eyewitnesses to testify to the incident and the participation therein of named individuals. At worst, Zahira's testimony could be ignored by the court as that of an unreliable witness. Against this backdrop comes a significant Supreme Court ruling a few days ago, on the weight to be accorded to an eyewitness in a case involving violence. The realism displayed by Justice Arijit Pasayat and Justice C.K. Thakker is highly commendable and should warm the hearts of prosecution officials all over the country. It reflects the apex court's sagacity as also its sensitivity to recent distressing happenings in the field...
The judgment by implication refuses to countenance theories and counter-theories normally advanced by medical experts - either on their own or in response to questions at the trial - as superior to facts elicited from unimpeachable eyewitnesses. Pragmatic rulings like these by the highest court of the land somewhat stem the rot at a time when there is a widespread feeling in the country that the most solid of criminal cases could be easily demolished by introducing a red herring....
http://www.flonnet.com/fl2124/stories/20041203003610300.htm
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The acquittal of 21 accused in the Best Bakery carnage case by a fast track court in Vadodara is a challenge to the justice delivery system. The judgment calls for a fresh look at the entire process, from the investigation to the trial stage, to ensure that it is free and fair and witnesses are not intimidated.
Vadodra judge H U Mahida cited several lapses in the prosecution. The delay in filing an FIR, which sets in motion investigation in a case, was fatal for the trial, it was felt....
Even now, a fresh probe and a fresh trial could be ordered by the high court to meet the ends of justice. ‘‘Going by the spirit of Article 21 of the Constitution, the Best Bakery case must be reopened for various reasons including to protect the right of free and fair trial outside Gujarat and to restore people’s faith in the justice delivery system,’’the senior Supreme Court lawyer added.
Ordering a fresh probe in a ‘‘decided’’ case like the present case would not mean that only by convicting the accused the ends of justice would be met. ‘‘It is for the trial court to take into account the fresh evidence and other material, including statements of the complainants and witnesses who were earlier intimidated, to pass a judgment,’’Jain said.
At the same time, the probe must be done by an independent agency which is not controlled by the Gujarat government. Otherwise, the fresh probe could be an eyewash and the trial might end up the Best Bakery way.
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/86108.cms
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It is a sad and painful commentary on the state of affairs that a young girl, and many like her, who have known the worst that lives can possibly have in store and had shown exemplary courage throughout this one year, should be forced to identify as benefactors and protectors those very persons who ruined and scarred them for life, and that too within the precints of a Court being held to provide them justice....
Why was the judge not concerned, at any time during the proceedings, or even later in his judgement, with the fact that those who stood their ground for a whole year had suddenly reversed their statements? When he delivered the judgement he knew pretty well the facts of the case and the truth, but still conveniently hid behind the façade of technical and procedural explanations for inability to establish conclusive guilt. That a judge dealing with legal cases connected with the Gujarat outrage should do so tells its own story....
The acquittal is bound to have social and political implications other than just adding to the demoralisation of the Muslims and to the cynicism of those who have doubts in the legitimate processes of the institutions of the State. Not necessarily the lessons drawn will be positive, and that is something that we must be aware of and alert to.
http://pd.cpim.org/2003/0727/07272003_nalini.htm
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The acquittal of the 21 persons accused of hacking to death or burning alive 14 men, women and children in what used to be the Best Bakery in Vadodara is, by any reckoning, a travesty of justice that should make us feel ashamed of what our country has become. This is not because the accused were acquitted, but because of the way in which they obtained their acquittal....
The acquittal puts a huge blot upon the police of the state. There is, admittedly, a great deal that needs explanation. Why did so many witnesses turn hostile?....
The Best Bakery case, thus, underlines the fact that the rule of law has virtually withered away in India. It has, therefore, been rightly condemned by all sections of opinion except the deep saffron brigade of the Far Right. But most commentators have concentrated upon its juridical implications and shied away from examining its social and political repercussions. These are, if anything, even more disturbing.
The outcome of the Best Bakery case has made it virtually certain that the four remaining fast track cases will meet the same fate. If these too collapse, the alienation of Indian Muslims from the nation will be incalculable. To young Muslims in particular this will come as further proof, if it were needed, that they cannot expect any protection, or even fair play, from the Indian State. Most of them will probably swallow their anger and hurt and continue with their lives, but some will almost certainly not.
Their anger will be stoked by the sheer insecurity of their economic lives. Today, with employment in the organised sector of the economy shrinking at the rate of 1 per cent per annum, while job seekers increase at the rate of 2.8 per cent, there are very few jobs to be had. A growing proportion of the youth faces unemployment. Every study shows this is more pronounced among the Muslims than among the Hindus and other minorities. Put poverty and unemployment, together with life in a ghetto, education in a madrasa, first-hand experience of the ghoulish face of Hindu communal violence and a sense of having been betrayed and abandoned, and one has a truly incendiary mixture that could explode at any time.
http://www.hindustantimes.com/2003/Jul/18/181_311801,00120001.htm
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In 2003, we witness remarkable contrasts, which present the `communal' crisis confronting justice. At the end of June 2003, the judgment in the Best Bakery case produced the worst of justice. The judgment is a tour de force of strange insights wholly out of place in a criminal case. The National Human Rights Commission had to take the case to the Supreme Court because the Gujarat Government failed to move on incontrovertible indications that the Muslim witnesses were threatened into submission.
In the Supreme Court, the Chief Justice, V.N. Khare, was forcefully forthright in exposing the rotten state of affairs. Tenaciously getting to the truth, he condemned the Gujarat Government for its inaction asking it to quit if it could not govern fairly. On September 19, 2003, the Chief Justice went further to record the statement of the State's Director-General of Police that the Best Bakery casewitnesses had been "won over" to expose the worst endemic tendencies in which communal injustice in India is enmeshed. What the Supreme Court proceedings have done is to restore confidence that the Indian justice system has the capacity to correct itself in communal cases of a failure of justice.
http://www.thehindu.com/2003/10/03/stories/2003100301481000.htm
The Supreme Court today intervened in the `Best Bakery case' by issuing notice to the Centre and the Gujarat Government on a petition from the National Human Rights Commission seeking retrial of the case outside Gujarat...
On June 27, the fast track court of H.U. Mahida acquitted all the 21 accused in the case on the ground that there was no evidence to prove their guilt. The court pulled up the prosecution for "shoddy investigation". Subsequently, the key witness, Zaheera Sheikh, approached the Commission seeking its intervention for re-opening of the case...
He said in this case, in which 14 persons were killed, 37 witnesses had turned hostile resulting in the acquittal of the 21 accused. He said the trial had sent a wrong message to the nation and people abroad were aghast at the criminal justice system in the country. He said only the apex court could remove this blot on the system by ordering a fresh investigation and retrial of the case outside Gujarat.
http://www.thehindu.com/2003/08/09/stories/2003080906810100.htm
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BY REPRIMANDING THE Gujarat Government for not showing seriousness in its appeal against the acquittal of the 21 accused in the Best Bakery burning case, the Supreme Court has validated the apprehension of the National Human Rights Commission and several non-governmental organisations that the victims of the Gujarat carnage in 2002 would not get justice under the Narendra Modi dispensation in the State. The three-judge Bench, headed by Chief Justice V.N. Khare, went to the extent of asking the Modi Government to quit if it was unable to prosecute the guilty in the case. In making such strong remarks against the State Government, the Supreme Court appears to have been provoked by the manner in which the prosecution conducted the case in the fast track trial court in Vadodara. The Bench specifically referred to the failure of the prosecution to cross-examine witnesses who had turned hostile and expressed lack of faith in the prosecution. But more importantly, the apex court described the appeal filed by the State Government as an "eyewash" and pointed to the possibility of collusion between the Government and the prosecution in subverting the cause of justice. While no one expects Mr. Modi to heed the Opposition demand and step down, the `collusion' remark pins the responsibility on him to prove there was no mala fide in the Government's handling of the case...
The Chief Justice voiced his apprehension that the Government would conduct itself in the same manner before the High Court. All this points to what was clear from the beginning: unless a retrial is ordered, allowing witnesses like Zaheera Sheikh another opportunity to depose in circumstances that are not intimidating or hostile, the Best Bakery case is guaranteed to end in miscarriage of justice.
http://www.thehindu.com/2003/09/16/stories/2003091601161000.htm
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Neither the chief minister nor any of his high officials seems to twitch a muscle when reminded of the anti-Muslim pogrom in Gujarat which brought worldwide denunciation. It is entirely in line with this attitude that the state government should now summon the nerve to suggest to the Supreme Court that communal violence may erupt once again if the apex court agrees to transfer the trial of any of the post-Godhra cases outside the state.
This is nothing but a crude attempt to arm-twist the country's highest judiciary. The Modi regime is virtually serving notice that goons acting in the name of Hindutva may again go unchecked in letting loose a reign of terror if the Supreme Court heeds calls for trials outside Gujarat. It may be recalled that the plea was first made in the context of the infamous Best Bakery case when it became clear that witnesses were being threatened and the continuance of the trial process within Gujarat will reduce justice to a farce. Since then, several instances of intimidation of witnesses have been reported from pogrom-affected parts of the state. In the light of its own investigations, the National Human Rights Commission urged the apex court to transfer cases outside Gujarat in the interest of a fair trial. The same plea was also made by the amicus curiae appointed by the Supreme Court to go into the matter.
The enormity of what has been happening in Gujarat can be gauged from the fact that the accused in all the 37 cases being tried by fast-track courts in the state have been let off for want of reliable witnesses. Just as curious, half of the 4,000 post-Godhra cases tried in the state have been disposed of in the absence of dependable witnesses. No wonder, the Supreme Court had occasion to give a dressing down to the state's chief secretary and the director-general of police.
http://www.hindustantimes.com/news/181_503720,0012.htm
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The Bilkis case is the only matter in which the Supreme Court ordered a CBI investigation. There were many other ghastly massacres. But the CBI's findings confirm one's worst suspicions about the impossibility of justice in Modi's Gujarat. When crimes are not recorded, when ministers direct rioting mobs, when state agencies suppress evidence, when the police participate in arson and rape, when witnesses are terrorised, and when the courts hand out obnoxious verdicts, the subversion of justice becomes complete.
If further proof was at all needed of this, the Gujarat High Court has furnished it in the Best Bakery case by dismissing the plea for retrial. Its verdict not only ignores the intimidation of key witnesses, it even conjures up "a definite design and conspiracy" by human rights lawyers to "malign" Gujarat and "create a rift between two communities..." There can be no stronger argument for trying all the major cases of communal violence outside Gujarat than this judgment and the CBI's findings. Regrettably, the Supreme Court is still reluctant to follow its own logic in the Jayalalitha case, and order this....
Gujarat's Muslims were targeted solely on the basis of religion. The attackers caused serious bodily and mental harm to them and inflicted "conditions of life" to cause their destruction. They used "rape as a means to change the identity of a group, and impart to the children an identity that is different from the one acquired at birth". The intent to destroy a group, "in whole or in part", is fully established.
The Gujarat violence hasn't ended. There is a continuing climate of intimidation, related to "fear generated both by threat of violence and actual attacks, displacement and non-rehabilitation, continuing economic violence, including an economic
boycott..., long-term impact on [Muslim women's]... physical, reproductive and psycho-social health, and long-term impact on children."
Scores of Muslims remain detained under POTA for the Godhra killings - largely without proof. But not one person has been charged under POTA for the greater massacre that followed. The State pays Hindus twice as much compensation as it does to Muslims. Blatant discrimination has turned a whole community into second-class citizens.
There can be no free and fair trial in Gujarat. As a signatory to the Genocide Convention, India is obligated to enact legislation to prevent/punish genocide. Our judicial system faces an unprecedented challenge from Gujarat. So far, there are no signs it will meet it.
http://www.hindustantimes.com/news/181_578954,00120001.htm
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The effort to expose the dramatis personae associated with the staging of the mass killings and the rape of women in the Gujarat pogrom two years ago may confirm our worst fears that those in authority may be involved...
The first difficulty in uphol