Godhra fire: Govt moves SC on tabling Banerjee report in House

The Supreme Court did not give immediate relief to the Government which had sought permission to table in Parliament the Justice U C Banerjee committee report on Godhra fire tragedy which had claimed 59 lives in a coach in Sabarmati Express in 2002.


A Bench headed by Chief Justice K G Balakrishnan, while taking note of the plea, asked the Gujarat High Court, where the matter is pending, to dispose of the matter within six weeks.

The Centre filed the petition against the order of the High Court which had restrained it on 6th March 2006 from tabling in Parliament the findings of the Banerjee Committee which had concluded that the blaze in S-6 coach was accidental and not a deliberate act.

The High Court had stayed the placing of the report of the Committee set up by the Railway Minister Lalu Prasad and had said the Centre will have to wait till its final order.

The High Court had also criticised the panel for making its report public without its permission.

Justice Banerjee, a retired Supreme Court judge, who headed the one-member panel, in its interim report on 17th January 2005, had said that the preliminary inquiries revealed that there were no indication that the train's coach was torched from outside.

Justice Banerjee Committee's report was contradicted by the findings of another Commission set up by the Gujarat Government. 
 

The two-member panel headed by another retired apex court judge, Justice G T Nanavati, had placed its report in the Gujarat Assembly on 25th September last year which said that the fire in the train in Godhra was a conspiracy and not an accident.

The 168-page report of the Commission said the burning of S-6 coach of the Sabarmati Express on 27th February 2002, killing 59 `kar sevaks' was a pre-planned conspiracy hatched at Aman Guest house in Godhra.

"There is absolutely no evidence to show that either the Chief Minister or any of the ministers in his council or police officers had played any role in the Godhra incident," the report said.

"On the basis of the facts and circumstances proved by the evidence, the Commission comes to the conclusion that burning of S-6 coach of the Sabarmati Express in which 'kar sevaks' coming from Ayodhya were killed was a pre-planned act," the report said.

The apex court on 13th October last had declined the plea of some NGOs seeking a stay on the circulation and publication of the Nanavati report like the curbs imposed by the Gujarat High Court against the Banerjee Committee report.