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Tuesday, Aug 24, 2004

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National

Court orders review of acquittal in riot cases

By Our Legal Correspondent

NEW DELHI, AUG. 23. The Supreme Court today asked the Advocate General of Gujarat to review the State Law Department's decision not to file appeals in about 200 riot cases in which the accused had been acquitted by the trial courts and to recommend whether or not to prefer appeals.

A three-Judge Bench comprising Justice Ruma Pal, Justice S.B. Sinha and Justice S.H. Kapadia passed the order after hearing the AG who submitted that in criminal cases normally the public prosecutor would give a report to the Law Department about the acquittal in a case, suggesting whether or not to file appeals before the higher court.

Giving figures, he said that out of 217 cases, it had been decided to prefer appeals in 45 cases and 16 were under process and the remaining 156 cases were pending consideration.

In the light of his submission, the Bench, departing from the normal procedure, asked the AG to scrutinise in conjunction with the State Law Secretary all the orders of acquittals given by the trial courts and suggest whether or not appeal should be filed in these cases. Further, the Bench said that in future, in all cases pertaining to acquittal in riots cases, the AG's view would be taken into consideration by the Law Department before deciding whether or not to prefer an appeal.

Status report

The Bench said the AG could take proper assistance for looking into these matters and gave him four months' time to go through the files and submit a status report.

Trial stayed

It also stayed the trial in a case relating to the incident in which two British nationals and two Indians were burnt alive since a petition seeking re-investigation by the CBI into the case and transfer of trial outside the State was pending before the court.

The court directed listing of 13 other Gujarat riot-related matters for further hearing on September 6.

Last week, the Court had ordered constitution of a high level committee of top police officials in the State to consider whether or not it was required to reopen the 2000-odd cases closed earlier on the ground that the accused could not be traced, required fresh investigation.

In respect of cases which ended in acquittals, the Bench had asked the AG to be present in the court today and accordingly, he appeared and made his submissions.

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