2002 Gulberg Society massacre: Supreme Court gives trial court judge three months to pronounce verdict

New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Monday paved the way for pronouncement of judgement by an Ahmedabad trial court in a case pertaining to the 2002 Gulberg Society massacre in which former Congress MP Ehsan Jafri and 67 others were killed. A bench headed by Chief Justice of India TS Thakur said there was no restraint on the trial judge to pronounce the verdict, and granted him three months for it. [caption id=“attachment_2622274” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  Supreme Court. AFP[/caption] The apex court had on 5 August, 2015 also granted an extension of three months to wind up the proceedings in the case. It had also declined to give bail to the accused who had sought relief on the ground that since trial of the case has been dragging, they were entitled to be released from jail. While District Judge PB Desai had requested the apex court to grant three more months to complete the trial in the case, the accused persons had written to it that due to delay in completing the proceedings, they should be granted bail as they have been in jail for 10 years. The apex court had in 2014 expressed satisfaction over the progress of nine cases of post-Godhra riots in Gujarat probed by the SIT. It has been monitoring nine sensitive cases after the National Human Rights Commission and various NGOs termed the investigation into these as shoddy and unreliable. The cases related to the riots in Gulberg Society, Ode, Sardarpura, Narodao Gaon, Naroda Patya, Machipith, Tarsali, Pandarwada and Raghavapura. An estimated 2,000 people were killed in post-Godhra riots in 2002. PTI