The Hindu : Gujarat plea for re-trial of bakery case dismissed

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Saturday, Dec 27, 2003

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Gujarat plea for re-trial of bakery case dismissed

By Our Special Correspondent

AHMEDABAD Dec. 26. A Division Bench of the Gujarat High Court today dismissed the State Government's application for a re-trial of the controversial Best Bakery communal carnage case in which the fast track court of Vadodara had acquitted all the 21 accused for want of evidence.

Mr. Justice B.J. Sethna and Mr. Justice J.R. Vora, constituting the division bench, heard the arguments for and against re-opening the case in the High Court for a week. They said the reasons for the dismissal of the appeal would be given after the winter vacation of the court which would end on January 12.

It would now be left to the Supreme Court, which was seized of a petition by the National Human Rights Commission for a re-trial of the case, to take a stand on the issue.

The Government had, in its amended appeal, not only asked for the re-trial of the bakery case, but also sought permission to produce fresh evidences against the accused and taking the prime complainant, Zahira Sheikh's statement in the Supreme Court on record. It also wanted the court to allow it to take on record the statements of various other witnesses outside the court as fresh evidence against the accused.

While the State Advocate-General quoted some 20 judgments by the Supreme Court and High Courts under similar circumstances in which a case dismissed by a lower court could be re-opened, the advocate for the accused, in countering the Government's stand, quoted 17 judgments from the same sources to claim that no evidence that was not produced in the fast track court could be taken up as fresh evidence or the witnesses could be subjected to fresh questioning. He had claimed that any statements, made after such a long time after the incident on March 1 last, could not be taken on record as fresh evidence nor a re-trial be held of the same case dismissed by the fast track court.

The Vadodara fast track court judge, H. U. Mahida, had created a sensation on June 27 this year when he ordered acquittal of all the 21 accused in the bakery case in which at least 14 persons were burnt alive during the communal carnage in February-March last year, after 37 of the total 73 witnesses, including the main complainant, Ms. Zahira Sheikh, and some members of her family, turned hostile.

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Gujarat plea for re-trial of bakery case dismissed