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“Manch distorting facts in plea to summon Modi”

Manas Dasgupta

Government questions bona fides of NGO

Applicant’s claims ‘imaginary, indicative of malicious attempt’
“Undue hurry” in completing post-mortem on victims of train carnage: Manch

AHMEDABAD: The Gujarat government has opposed summoning of Chief Minister Narendra Modi, and others for cross-examination before the G. T. Nanavati-Akshay Mehta Judicial Enquiry Commission probing the Godhra train carnage and post-Godhra communal riots in 2002.

In a written submission on Friday, government pleader T. S. Nanavati said the April 2009 application by the Jansangharsh Manch “does not deserve to be granted.” For, there were “certain factually incorrect and imaginary circumstances narrated” in the application.

Advocate-General, Kamal Trivedi, who was present before the Commission when Manch advocate Mukul Sinha argued for summoning Mr. Modi and six former Ministers, and police and administration officials, would present the government’s view on Saturday.

Questioning the “bona fides” of the Manch, a non-governmental organisation, which it said was constituted primarily to represent trade union workers and espouse labour laws, in moving the application, the government submission referred to the NGO’s claim about the fire aboard the Sabarmati Express as “accidental,” in the face of a “plethora of evidence” before the Commission that it was a pre-planned attack by certain persons.

“The present application coming from such applicant, who has scant regard for the truth and is always out to distort the facts, deserves to be rejected on this ground alone,” the government said.

The government “suo motu enlarging the scope” of the Commission to enquire into the role and conduct of the Chief Minister and other Ministers was a “most democratic and transparent action,” it said.

Referring to the claim that the violence which followed the train carnage was “instigated by the Chief Minister and his coterie of Ministers and in connivance with the State administration,” the government submission said these factors and circumstances narrated by the applicant were “imaginary and only indicative of the malicious attempt” of the Manch to “distort the true facts and present them in an untrue manner.”

The government said the circumstances narrated in the submissions were not only “conjectural but also far from suggestive of any incriminating circumstances, much less suggesting state-sponsored violence. Most of the circumstances narrated in the application are contrary to the record and evidence led before the Commission and are demonstrably incorrect.”

Earlier, Dr. Sinha maintained that “undue hurry” was shown in completing the post-mortem on the victims of the train carnage even before the inquest officer signed his recommendation for post-mortem; the circumstances in which the bodies were brought to Ahmedabad from Godhra “at the instance of the Chief Minister” the very next day which further ignited the large-scale post-Godhra violence, and “inaction” on the part of Mr. Modi to persuade his own ruling party to desist from giving a “bandh” call “knowing well that it could ignite violence.”

Dr. Sinha maintained that the Commission, even without basing its decision on the evidence available against the Chief Minister, could still summon him and some members of his Cabinet at least to know their “version” of the events. That could help it arrive at a conclusion about the circumstances that led to the train carnage and post-Godhra riots.

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