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Wednesday, Jun 01, 2005

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Central committee's report submitted to POTA Court

Special Correspondent

AHMEDABAD: The Gujarat Government on Tuesday submitted before the POTA Court the Central Review Committee's report recommending withdrawal of application of the Prevention of Terrorism Act against the Godhra train carnage case accused.

Submitting the report, Special Public Prosecutor H. M. Dhruv sought 14 days' time for filing the State Government's opinion on the committee's recommendations. Special POTA Court judge Sonia Gokani, however, granted time till June 10 for filing the Government's opinion.

Advocate Mukul Sinha said the delay on the part of the Government Pleader to submit the report and file its opinion on the recommendation amounted to contempt of court, as under Section 321 of the Criminal Procedure Code, it was required to be submitted at the earliest.

The Central Review Committee had submitted its recommendations to the State Home Ministry about a fortnight ago. Under the Gujarat High Court order, the public prosecutor was expected to ``apply his mind'' and file an application before the designated court for withdrawal of charges.

Assistant Public Prosecutor Sudhir Brahmbhatt, however, said since the Godhra train carnage was a complicated case and hundreds of charge sheets had been filed, the Government required time to study all of them before forming its own opinion. Mr. Dhruv said the Government was yet to decide whether to file an application for withdrawal of the charges.

An official spokesman of the State Government, however, had earlier made it clear that the Government disagreed with the Central Committee's recommendation and considered the Godhra train carnage as a pre-planned conspiracy and a fit case for application of POTA against the accused.

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