Nanavati Commission will allow suspended IPS officer Sanjeev Bhatt to inspect documents pertaining to 2002 post-Godhra riots

(Source: Indian Express)

Suspended IPS officer Sanjiv Bhatt to inspect 2002-riot related documents


Agencies : Ahmedabad, Wed Oct 17 2012, 11:01 hrs

Justice Nanavati Commission will allow suspended IPS officer Sanjeev Bhatt to inspect documents pertaining to 2002 post-Godhra riots as per the Gujarat High Court order.

“We have neither been intimated by Sanjiv Bhatt nor we have issued any summons to him in this regard. He can come anytime and as per the court order and we will let him inspect the documents which are in our custody,” said an official of Nanavati Commission.

Gujarat High Court had recently declined to direct Nanavati Commission, which is probing the post-Godhra riots, to summon Chief Minister Narendra Modi while disposing off the PIL filed by Bhatt. But it had directed the state government to submit documents concerning the 2002 riots, as sought by Bhatt, to the commission within a week and then also asked the Commission to let those documents be inspected by Bhatt.

Bhatt has decided to inspect those documents on October 19.

He had written a letter to the Commission on December 15, 2011 and requested it to direct the state government to submit documents related to the riot period to the Commission.

Though the counsel appearing for the state government had at that time claimed that documents sought by Bhatt were already destroyed.

But now as noted by the court in its judgement on the PIL filed jointly by Bhatt and People's Union for Civil Liberties (PUCL), state government has claimed that those documents were already submitted to the Commission.

Bhatt, who had alleged complacency of Chief Minister Narendra Modi in the 2002 post-Godhra riots, had sought those documents in support of his claim and to help him file a detailed affidavit.

As per court order, after the inspection, Bhatt will be allowed to file an affidavit before the Commission.

Following the incident of setting on fire of Sabarmati Express train bogies near Godhra Railway station on February 27, 2002 in which 59 people died, and the subsequent communal violence, the government had set up a two member Commission to probe both the incidents.